Introduction: Migration. 47 



the birds seen about his place was most astonishing. The Torres Straits Islands 

 serve as resting places for the birds crossing from New Guinea ; Booby Island 

 is evidently thus used, and the number of its land-birds is thus to be accounted 

 for. This island corresponds thus in this respect with such an island as Heligo- 

 land. ... It is the last place in the world, as viewed from the sea, with clouds 

 of Boobies hovering over it, from which one would expect two new land-birds 

 [a Dove and a Rail described by Gould] to hail. Our officers laughed at the 

 notion of there being quails or anything to shoot ujjon it. . . . On August 13'\ 

 1841, the officers of the 'Beagle' shot 145 quails, 18 pigeons, 12 rails of two 

 species, and 3 pigeons ^"doves" in Stokes' 'Discoveries in Australia' 1846 II, 

 330]." The contents of the game-book of the "Beagle" when among the islands 

 of the Arafura Sea are large and interesting, though unscientific; an extract is 

 given by Stokes, 1. c. The transit of the Australian Bee-eater, Merops ornatus, 

 across the Torres Straits has been remarked upon by two observers (see p. 250). 

 This bird takes some weeks to travel from here to its breeding grounds in New 

 South Wales. 



Touching migration in Australia Mr. A. J. North {in lit. 7. VIII. 1894) has 

 most obligingly furnished us with the following: "There is nothing published in 

 the Proceedings of any society beyond a paper contributed by Dr. E. P. Ramsay 

 to the Ornithological Congress held ... in Vienna about twelve years ago . . . 

 As there pointed out by Dr. Ramsay we have, comparatively speaking, but very 

 few migratory birds in Australia, but a great number of nomadic species Avhich 

 shift from one point of the country to another, many of them appearing regu- 

 larly every season in the spring to breed and returning north or west directly 

 the cold weather sets in. From my notes which I have kept for the past 

 twenty years I will give you the date or time of arrival and departure of the 

 species asked for . . . 



''Chaetura caiidacuta. This bird arrives in New South Wales during the 

 hottest months of the year. I have noted them as early as December, but they 

 usually arrive in January and depart again about the middle of April. I have 

 never seen them resting, they pass the whole of the day on the wing. 



^Ci/pselus pacijicus. Arrives and departs at the same time as the preceding 

 species, with which it is more often than not seen in company. It is not, 

 however, so numerous as C. caudacuta. 



"JEuiystonms pacijicus and Scythrops novaehollandiae. These species arrive in 

 Northern Queensland about the end of August, but their appearance is influenced 

 greatly by the season; sometimes it is at the end of September, and in 1892 

 it was as late as the 12"^ of October when Eurystomus arrived. They leave 

 again on the approach of cold weather about the end of April. In New South 

 Wales Eurystomus arrives usually about the middle of September and departs 

 again early in April. I saw young birds nearly fledged taken from their nesting 

 place in the hollow limb of a tree near Newcastle on the 3''^ of October, 1893; 

 this was very early for New South Wales. 



