NOTE ON THE BIRDS OF TASMANIA. 



By Colonel W. V. Legge, F.L.S., &c. 

 (President of the Australian Ornithological Union.) 



Compared with tropical countries, or other regions of 

 similar area^ the Island of Tasmania cannot be said to be rich 

 in bird life. There are two apparent causes for our limited 

 avifauna. First, the comparative paucity of fruit-bearing 

 flora and insect-life; secondly, our island being the terminal 

 point of the Australian " region," and separated from it by 

 a strait, does not conie in for its share of distribution of 

 species, nor its proportion of northern raigi-ants, which do 

 not wander further than the southern parts of the conti- 

 nent. If, therefore, we confine ourselves to land-birds 

 proper, and eliminate the numerous species of Petrel re- 

 corded as inhabiting our seas, the Penguins, the Gulls, and 

 Terns (Gavice), the geese and ducks (Anseres), the Plovers 

 and snipe-like birds (Limicolce), and, finally, the Herons 

 (Ardeuke), there remains but a small list, even if we include 

 the Rails, Coots, Cormorants, and Grebes. To the casual ob- 

 server, however, who may wander through the open, settled 

 country in the South, Midlands, Western, and Coast dis- 

 tricts (not including the West), our feathered friends would 

 seem to be fairly numerous ; for it is in territory of this sort 

 that the majority of our species are to be found. It suits 

 the habits, and provides food, for the parakeets, the various 

 honey-eatersi, small fly-catching birds (among which the 

 showy chat-robins are conspicuous); tree-tits, Acanthiza, the 

 diamond birds (Dicceidce), and various other small Passe- 

 rine birds, frequenting open country in preference to forest. 

 On the other hand, in the dense and lofty forests, birds are 

 few and far between, except in small tracts of land border- 

 ing creeks and rivers in the gullies, which are clothed with 

 luxuriant scrub, and where insect life is more abundant. 

 Again, if we penetrate the dense mountain forests of 

 myrtle (Fagus cunninghami), in the West of the island, we 

 find the almost impenetrable scrub and tangled undergrowth 



