40 



Notes. [^■-\;„^-- 



"Nests and Eggs of Birds Found Breeding in Australia 

 AND Tasmania." — The first part of the third volume of this 

 special catalogue, published by the Australian Museum, Sydney, 

 has been issued. Tn it the author, Mr. A. J. North, C.M.Z.S., 

 Ornithologist to the Museum, deals with the nests and eggs 

 of the remaining species of the order Picaria, comprising the 

 Cuculidffi (cuckoos), of which many interesting notes are given. 

 A commencement is made with that typical Australian order, 

 the Psittaci. of which the Loridie (lorikeets) and some of the 

 CacatuidcE (cockatoos) are dealt with. The illustrations are, 

 as usual, excellent, and the plate of an aboriginal taking the 

 nest of a Blue-bellied Lorikeet strikingly illustrates the diffi- 

 culties met with by the student of oology. 



Colour Effects. — " A favourite food of the great green 

 gold, and black butterfly, Ornithoptera cassandra, is the nectar 

 of the hard, dull-red flowers of the Umbrella-tree, and this 

 fact assisted in an observation which seems to prove that 

 plants play tricks on insects. Amongst the introduced plants 

 of Dunk Island is one of the Acalyphas. Butterflies which 

 have feasted among the Umbrella-trees on the beach and on 

 the edge of the jungle flit about the garden, and almost in- 

 variably visit the red but nectarless Acalypha. One began at 

 the encl of the row, examined the topmost leaves, flitted to the 

 next, and so on, lured by the colour and disappointed by the 

 absence of nectar, twenty-five times in succession, until it 

 blundered on the red Hibiscus bushes and began to feed. — From 

 "Confessions of a Beachcomber" — a delightful record of a 

 nature-lover's life in tropical Queensland. 



The National Parks and Forest Reserves of Australia. 

 — ^Two addresses by Mr. W. H. Selway, as chairman of the 

 Field Naturalists' section of the Royal Society of South Aus- 

 tralia, given at the two last annual meetings, have been issued 

 in pamphlet form, and present in clear and concise terms what 

 has been done in Australasia up to the present time in setting 

 aside land for national parks — that is, reserves where the 

 native fauna and flora may flourish unmolested — and as reserves 

 for forest purposes. For the former purpose he credits New 

 South Wales as having 69,000 acres ; Victoria, 169,000 ; 

 Queensland, 26,500 ; South Australia, 95,000 ; Western Aus- 

 tralia, 210,000 ; and Tasmania, 16,000. On the question of 

 forestry he is very emphatic as to the indifference the Aus- 

 tralian States are displaying with regard to future demands 

 for timber, and urges immediate attention to the question. 

 He gives the area of land in the Commonwealth specially 

 reserved for timber as 1.36 per cent., and the total forest araa 

 as 5.29 per cent. 



