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Mr. A. J. Campbell,



and hooking, with rod and line, cod and plump perch out of the

broad-bosomed Murray. And members who went with the R.A.O.U.

to Kangaroo Island will remember the creeks there alive with bream,

which were sometimes hooked two at one cast of the line. But I

never took to shooting birds for sport. “ Virtue has its own reward.”

On that strip, once sand and scrub, between St. Kilda and Sandridge

(Vic.) which is now a forest of houses known as the Beaconsfield-

parade, I used to kill snakes and pick up Dottrel’s eggs in doublets.

There were swamps contiguous, teeming with wild fowl. At a

wheeling feathered flock one day a man fired. Out of the destruction

two Wood-Ducks fell near me. As the man was not legally entitled

to them, I bagged both birds and bolted home.


Numerous Ducks used to fly overhead in small flocks up and

down the River Yarra. At evening they usually flew up stream,

offering tempting shots for long-ranged guns. One evening when

“ mooning ” near Combo Swamp, Toorak, I heard a distant shot

round the bend, and some considerable time afterwards a fine, fat

black duck fell at my feet, stone dead. There being nobody about, I

quietly picked up the bird and took it home.


Once I was in a slight railway accident. The carriage in

which we were travelling left the rails, and bumped considerably

when off the right track—indeed, nearly capsized before the train

was pulled up. What concerned me most was a bright and beautiful

clutch of kestrel’s eggs, which I had, unblown, in a “ billy ” beneath

the seat. I took the eggs that day from a crevice of a cliff over¬

hanging the Werribee River.


Someone has asked me what I consider my greatest finds. I

can hardly say. But those of most lasting memories to me are

probably the finding of my first lyre-bird's nest—the excitement of

flushing the sitting bird, with its loud, whistling shriek of alarm as

it flew down gully. Then, when your excitement subsides, there is

the admiration for the picturesque nest, with its virgin forest and

fern surroundings. Or, perhaps, it would be the first finding of an

Emu’s nest. You notice the noble bird tear away through the belt

of box timber, and on going to the starting point there you behold,

upon a bed amid the cane-grass, the clutch of eight or ten large and

beautiful greenish eggs. Or it may be whon you land on an out-of-



