:p-^i^a? III. 



BIRDS INSECTIVOROUS AND GRANIVOROUS 

 (BENEFICIAL). 



There are a number of birds that confine themselves neitlier 

 to vegetable nor animal food. They serve the interests of the 

 agriculturist and fruit-grower by eating numerous kinds of 

 lowly-organized animals, and seeds of uncultivated plants, or 

 seed not further needed. Such an example is the Quail. It 

 checks the insects harboured in the fields, in addition to con- 

 suming a large proportion of seeds not needed for growing pur- 

 poses. Birds such as the Pipit, Song-Lark, Grass-Warbler, 

 and White-face, though seed-eating as well as insectivorous, 

 play so important a part in the economy of agriculture that 

 they have been placed in the leading head. It may be 

 thought the Magpies should rank under this category, but 

 they appear to me to be so genuinely insectivorous that I 

 have placed them in the first part. The Mallee Fowl, because 

 of its unique position in the bird fauna, and its rapidly 

 approaching time of extinction in Victoria, is worthy of 

 special notice, A further record of its habits, very different 

 from those of other birds beyond mound-builders, should 

 make interesting and instructive reading. 



