74 THR VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



ravenous insects. When a flock of Ibis arrive they settle on one 

 spot and pick, and pick, and pick by the hour. Then the 

 crickets which have so far escaped become frightened, and 

 disappear beyond the reach of the Ibis into the cracks in the 

 ground, and the Ibis rise and seek a fresh place and commence 

 operations there. When the crickets left in the first patch find 

 that the birds are gone, they come out to graze, as they are as 

 ravenous for grass as the Ibis are for crickets ; and this the birds 

 well know, and when they have reduced the second point of 

 attack to the same condition as the first was in when they left it, 

 they return to the first, and remain while a single cricket remains 

 above ground, and so from place to place. I have noticed that the 

 birds leave longer and longer intervals between their visits to any 

 one spot, and the oftener they return the shorter time they remain, 

 proving that they only come and stay so long as there is insect 

 food to be had. Examine a place where locusts have deposited 

 their eggs after it has been visited by a flock of Ibis, and you 

 will find the ground as full of holes as a cullender. These 

 holes are made by the powerful beak of the Ibis being driven 

 into the ground to reach the eggs or newly hatched insects, 

 and the millions of the pest they thus destroy can only be 

 imagined. 



Farmers will doubtless remember the benefits they have 

 received in the shape of heavy crops after the Ibis have stayed a 

 season with them, and some farmers have the good sense to 

 protect the birds. In the year 1890 the harvest caterpillar was 

 extremely bad in the Western District of Victoria. Crops had to 

 be cut before they were ripe to save anything from this pest, and 

 a great deal of fodder was spoiled in the stooks by the excreta of 

 the insects which remained in the crop after it was cut. I 

 remember a most lovely crop of malting barley, which was grown 

 close to the railway station at Camperdown. I saw it just as it 

 was becoming fit to cut, and admired it greatly. Three days 

 afterwards there was hardly a grain of corn to be seen of it. The 

 caterpillars had cut off all the heads, and the farmer had to turn 

 his stock in to eat the fallen grain. That autumn the Ibis came 

 not in battalions or regiments, but in whole army corps, and 

 stayed during the winter, and for three years afterwards hardly a 

 single harvest caterpillar was to be seen. 



If kept in gardens as pets these birds do infinite service in 

 keeping down injurious insects. Permits to keep them for that 

 purpose may be had from Mr. Martin, the Secretary for Public 

 Works, in whose hands the administration of the Game Act rests. 



The chief difiiculty in keeping Ibis in a semi-wild state is that 

 foxes prey upon them whenever they get an opportunity, and a 

 pinioned Ibis has no chance against Reynard. 



