SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 13 



feeding upon the plague locusts in Basutoland, South Africa, during the 

 locusts' invasion of 1909, were many White Storks (Cinconia alba), which 

 spend the summer in Northern Europe, building their nests on the roofs of 

 the Northman's house. Several of these storks, over-gorged with grasshoppers, 

 were caught by the Government officials, and found to have metal rings on 

 their legs dated the previous season, and which had been affixed to them by 

 the observers of the Vogelwarte Institution at Rositten on the Baltic Sea. 



In Canada, the importance of having a Migratory Birds Convention 

 between Great Britain and the United States was considered in 1916. The 

 migration of birds, from Canada to the United States and their return 

 northward in the summer was of such importance that some years ago the 

 Canadian Government considered that a uniform close season for game birds 

 nesting in that country should be passed by the federal authorities of the 

 United States. After a considerable amount of correspondence, a convention 

 was signed at Washington for the protection of certain migratory birds in 

 Canada and the United States. This was known as the Migratory Birds 

 Convention Act for the Protection of Migratory Birds in Canada ; it came 

 into force in 1917. It covers both migratory game and insectivorous birds. 



Many of our Australian birds, though they do not leave this island 

 continent, travel every year from south to north as the winter comes round, 

 returning from Queensland in the early summer. Among many others the 

 wood-swallows (Artamus sp.) always reach Victoria before Christmas, nesting 

 in the low gum scrub, and are thus popularly known by the school children 

 as "small summer birds," while the Black-faced Graucalus which arrives 

 about the same time is known as the "large summer bird." 



The Australian Snipe (Gallinage australis), which goes as far south as 

 Tasmania in the summer months, flies northward at the first hint of winter, 

 nests in Japan from May to August, and returns to New South Wales in 

 September and October. Other Australian birds go to the great plains of 

 Siberia to bring up their nestlings, while the swifts and swallows flitting 

 about the ponds in Melbourne parks may, a few days later, be twittering on 

 the telegraph wires at Bourke or far away in central Queensland. I 

 remember over thirty years ago, watching the gathering together of immense 

 flocks of swallows, which camped for several nights on the lignum swamps 

 in north-western Victoria before starting on their northern jouney to avoid 

 the approaching winter. 



The local migrations of Australian birds from one part of the continent to 

 another, and the gathering together of enormous swarms of certain species of 

 birds, together with their sudden appearance in localities in which they were 

 previously unknown or comparatively rare, is very interesting and worthy of 

 careful record. Dr. George Bennett in his " Gatherings of a Naturalist in 

 Australia," gives an instance : In 1833 the little Water-hen invaded the 

 settlers' gardens in the Swan River Colony, Western Australia, though they 

 had never been seen previously on the coast. Captain Sturt recorded a 



