68 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXV. 



the heronry were more than I had bargained for. Dead and 

 dying Egrets were everywhere. The phime-hunters had been 

 there before me, and the wreck they had left behind made my 

 blood boil with indignation. It would not have been so bad had 

 the slaughter consisted only of the hundred or so adult birds, 

 but, as these were the parents of three times as many fledglings, 

 left to die of starvation, you may readily guess how I felt. I took 

 photos, of the scene, one which you will agree with me is far 

 from pleasant to contemplate. Let us hope that the day will 

 come when ladies will eschew Egret plumes as decorations for 

 their head-gear, as I am sure they would if they only knew what 

 cruelty the securing of these plumes causes, for it is only at the 

 nesting time that the adult birds, which are furnished with the 

 coveted plumes, can be approached with any degree of certainty 

 by the hunters. 



During my three days I was able to get several photos, of 

 other species of birds which I greatly desired, and, last but not 

 least, I secured a picture of a duck-shooter and his punt gun, a 

 murderous weapon ten feet long. But this was a toy to some 

 that are still surreptitiously used on the swamps, and which are 

 capable of destroying a mob of one hundred ducks at one 

 discharge. Under such treatment it is a wonder that any ducks 

 are left in the district, and, were it not for the sparsely settled 

 country in the interior of Australia, where some at least of our 

 game-birds are able to breed unmolested, except by droughts, we 

 would certainly have few game-birds left. With such a large 

 space of difficult country to supervise, the energies of the officers 

 administering the Game Act are severely taxed, and, if we are not 

 to have complete extermination of our water-birds, much more 

 stringent measures and laws will have to be devised for their 

 protection. 



[The paper was illustrated by a splendid series of some eighty 

 lantern slides, depicting the many phases of bird-life touched on. 

 — Ed. YiGl. Nat?^ 



Apus. — The spirit specimens of Apus, a phillopod crustacean, 

 exhibited by me at the July meeting of the Club differ from 

 the allied genus Lepidurus, which is common in Victoria, in 

 that Lepidurus has a flap-structure between the two filiform 

 processes at the posterior end of the abdomen. These 

 specimens were collected by me at Townsville, North Queens- 

 land, on 3rd January, 1908, from a small fresh -water pool 

 about 4 feet wide, 10 feet long, and 3 inches deep, which 

 had been in existence for less than a fortnight, and was 

 within a hundred yards of the sea. I estimated the pool to 

 contain at least two thousand living specimens of Apus, besides 

 other crustaceans. Professor Spencer informs me that he was 

 not aware that Apus occurred so near the sea coast, as it is a 

 Central Australian form of Entomostracan. — R. \V. Armitage. 



