40 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



has been limited, possibly, only to the contemplation of the inanimate body, the 

 mangled trophy of the sportsman's gun. Having this manifest truism distinctly 

 in view, the writer made the investment in the streets of Brisbane, Queensland, a 

 few years back, of a pair of young Australian Fern-owls, or Goat-suckers, Podargus 

 strigoides, popularly known throughout the length and breadth of the Australian 

 Colonies by the respective titles of the " Mope-hawk " or " More-pork." * The 

 former of these two appellations has been probably conferred upon the bird with 

 reference to its somewhat hawk-like aspect and at the same time retiring habits, it 

 being, like other members of its tribe, strictly crepuscular. The second title, " More- 

 pork," by which this bird is the more commonly known, has a -very different and, 

 as it so happens, an entirely mis-applied derivation. To travellers through the 

 vast solitudes of the Australian bush, and to all settlers residing within a reasonable 

 distance of its virgin forests, the weird notes at night of an owl-like bird, which 

 repeats at intervals in melancholy and mournful measures the words " More-pork," 

 "More-pork," is a familiar phenomenon. In the search for the author of the doleful 

 strains, it commonly happens that a representative of the species, Podargus strigoides, 

 now under notice, is discovered in the neighbourhood. It has even been asserted 

 that the bird has been shot in the very act of uttering the fateful words that sealed 

 its death warrant. 



In a conversation held some years since with Dr. E. P. Ramsay, the late Curator 

 of the Australian Museum, Sydney, and a most enthusiastic ornithologist, that authority 

 assured the author that he had fully satisfied himself that the night-bird that emitted 

 the " More-pork " note was a true owl, the technical name of which is Ninox boobook. 

 The author can as unhesitatingly affirm that Podargus is absolutely innocent of 

 giving voice to the note imputed to it. As hereafter shown, it possesses a vocabu- 

 lary of many tones, but none of these can be interpreted by the widest stretch of 

 imagination into the invocation for pork generally attributed to it. A name, how- 

 ever, once affixed by popular fiat to a bird or beast is practically as unalterable as 

 the laws of the Medes and Persians, and so Podargus strigoides and its allied variety, 

 P. Cumeri, will doubtless be associated in Australia to the end of time with its mis- 



* With reference to the wide gape of the bill, or in other words distinctly " open countenances," which 

 the Podargi share in common with their near allies the true Goat-suckers, Caprimulgidke, Mr. Gould has 

 conferred upon the members of the genus, in his previously mentioned Monograph, the highly expressive 

 sobriquet of Australian " Frogmouths." 



