VoI.XXVIIl. 

 iqii 



1 Field Naturalists' Club — Proceedings. 67 



raised some interesting points, the question should still remain 

 open. 



Mr. F. Pitcher congratulated the author on his having noted 

 the varying conditions, which hitherto had been recognized 

 only in New South Wales. 



Mr. F. Chapman, A.L.S., said that the present discussion 

 reminded him of some leaf-casts of a Eucalypt which had been 

 found in ironstone at Stawell, Victoria, and dated back to 

 Eocene times. These leaves, he had found, compared well 

 with E. ainygdalina, but Mr. R. T. Baker, F.L.S., thought they 

 approached nerdrer to E. dives. 



Mr. St. John briefly replied. 



2. By Mr. G. A. Keartland, entitled " The Alteration of 

 the Quail Season and its Effects." 



The author showed how the Fisheries and Game Branch had 

 from time to time been transferred from department to depart- 

 ment, with little rest ; but now it had acquired a new status 

 under the Department of Agriculture. He referred particularly, 

 as a naturalist and a sportsman, to the many alterations of 

 the quail season. On the opening day of the present season 

 he had gone out with his gun, and had come home ashamed of 

 what had happened in the sporting field that day. The 

 opening day was too early in the year, and, in view of the 

 history of the struggle that had extended over about twenty 

 years, which he had in memory, he urged that the old date 

 of opening be re-adopted. 



Professor Ewart and Mr. A. D. Hardy spoke, and in reply 

 Mr. Keartland stated that quail, in captivity, were almost 

 omnivorous ; but that, though their food in the fields varied, 

 their principal diet was grass-seeds and insects. 



The meeting resolved, on the motion of Messrs Pitcher and 

 M'Lennan — " That, when published, copies of the Victorian 

 Naturalist containing Mr. Keartland's paper be forwarded to 

 the Department of Agriculture, with a letter urging further 

 consideration of the question." 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 



Moth attracted by Jam. — Mr. A. D. Hardy, F.L.S., read 

 a short note on a Bogong Moth, A gratis spina, which, so late 

 in the season as the ist of June, had fluttered about his dining- 

 room, first attracted by the incandescent gas-light, next by 

 the white table-cloth, and finally found its way to an open 

 glass dish of plum jam, of dark red colour and rather syrupy 

 consistency. Here it stayed fully twenty minutes, on the edge 

 of the dish, its long tongue inserted in the syrup, and was so 

 voracious that it did not seem to mind being touched. During 

 the period it several times left the jam, and walked about on the 

 edge of the dish, but in less than a minute renewed feasting. 



