112 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



BOOK NOTICE. 

 Australian Nature Stories for Children. By Constance 

 Tisdall, B.A. Melbourne : Ingram and Son. Price, 6d. 

 Under the above title has been published a little volume of 

 nearly loo pages, designed as an elementary reading book for 

 schools. In the dozen chapters of which it is composed as 

 many of our characteristic birds, animals, and trees are dealt with 

 in an interesting style, generally conversational, in which each 

 object tells its own story, and in so doing emphasizes many of 

 the more prominent facts connected with its life-history. Each 

 chapter is illustrated, and is thus made more interesting for young 

 readers. It is to be hoped that its usefulness will be recognized 

 by teachers throughout Australia. 



Timber-Growing in South Australia. — The recently issued 

 report of the Conservator of Forests for South Australia, Mr. 

 Walter Gill, shows what may be done in the way of tree-planting 

 in Australia. His State can fairly claim to be the first of the 

 Australian States to put timber on the market, suitable for com- 

 mercial purposes, from trees planted and grown under Govern- 

 ment supervision. Mr. Gill reports that an Aleppo Pine, Finus 

 halepensis, grown in tlie Wimbarra Forest in twenty years, was 

 felled and cut into timber for fruit cases, yielding enough boards 

 for sixteen cases. The result was so satisfactory that a small 

 saw-milling plant has been erected, and enough trees felled to 

 yield 6,000 export apple cases. The report is illustrated with 

 several views of portions of the plantations, as well as of the Date 

 Palms at Hergott, where 330 lbs. of very fine fruit was produced 

 last season. In another pamphlet on " The Growing Scarcity of 

 Coniferous Timber," Mr. Gill points out that tiie growing of pine 

 timber could be largely entered upon in Australia, and that the 

 Ninety-Mile Desert, between the Murray and the Victorian border, 

 could be made a vast pine forest, to the manifest advantage of 

 fruit-growers and others, besides affording an outlet for labour. 



Dfstruction of Marsupials. — The Annual Report (for 1902) 

 of the Queensland Inspector of Stock contains some large figures 

 with reference to the destruction of marsupials in that State. 

 Since the inception of the Act of 1877 a bonus has been paid 

 on the scalps presented, which have numbered 17,378,392 in 

 all, comprising 7,407,863 kangaroos and wallaroos; 9,290,039 

 wallabies ; 460,838 paddymelons, bandicoots, and kangaroo 

 rats; and 219,652 dingoes. The report states that, owing to 

 the drought there is a decrease of 4,250,000 in number of sheep 

 cattle, and horses in the State, in comparison with the previous 

 year. Competent authorities have stated the loss to Australia by 

 drought, during the last seven or eight years, has amounted to 

 at least 60,000,000 head of sheep, cattle, and horses. 



