126 Field Naturalists' Club — Conversazione. [ "^nov. ^' 



tinctive characters in the bird-hfe of AustraHa, which, he said, 

 is in many ways more interesting than that of any other quarter 

 of the globe, and remarked that, while only two widely- 

 distributed families of birds are missing in its list, there are 

 several which do not extend beyond its boundaries. While 

 Europe has but one family of birds restricted to it, the Aus- 

 tralian region has no less than eighteen families of birds 

 peculiar to it. It is the stronghold of such groups as the honey- 

 eaters, the mound-builders, the parrots and cockatoos, the 

 bower-birds, the birds-of-paradise, and the bell-magpies. That 

 its birds are songless is quite a mistake, for, as songsters, many 

 of its birds compare more than favourably with those of other 

 countries, while in the Lyre-bird it possesses the finest orni- 

 thological mimic known. The song-birds are more varied than 

 those of any other region, for Australia has members of twenty- 

 nine families of song-birds, while North America has but 

 twenty-three and Britain nineteen families. Many British 

 birds are much more strongly represented in Australia than in 

 Britain, for, while the latter has but one kingfisher, one cuckoo, 

 one tree-creeper, and one nuthatch, Australia has respectively 

 fourteen, fourteen, eight, and eight members of these groups. 

 Again, Australia has two of the six families that make up the 

 primitive sub-class of birds ; these are the Emu and Cassowary. 

 This sub-class is not represented at all in northern lands. 

 Southern lands are much richer in bird-life than northern 

 lands, so that, while Australia has eighty families of birds, 

 Europe, Western Asia, and North-west Africa together have 

 but seventy-three, while North America, excluding Mexico, has 

 but sixty-nine families of birds. Too long have Australian 

 birds been belittled. The Australian eagle is the largest eagle 

 known ; the Kookaburra is the giant of the kingfisher family : 

 while Alfred Russel Wallace said " the wonderful modulated 

 whistle of the Australian magpie is unequalled among European 

 birds." 



By way of further illustrating the lecturette, the series of 

 diagrams used to illustrate the recently published volume, 

 " An Australian Bird Book," was kindly lent by the Education 

 Department ; and Mr. L. E. Chandler, of the Bird Observers' 

 Club, assisted Mr. G. A. Keartland to make up a representative 

 series of bird skins, numbering about ninety specimens, illus- 

 trating every family of the birds of Victoria. 



The lecturette on Wednesday evening was given by Professor 

 E. W. Skeats, D.Sc, who took as his subject " Geology in 

 Relation to Scenery," and, by means of a fine series of lantern 

 slides, pointed out to an appreciative audience the character- 

 istics of the principal land forms, such as mountains, plains, 

 lakes, rivers, valleys, &c. He then referred to the structural 



