CHAPTER XI. 



THE PARADISE PARROT TRAGEDY. 



OF how many small birds native to Australia 

 has it to be written in sorrow, "The beau- 

 tiful is vanished and returns not?" 



It is time we looked into this matter. It is time 

 we gave over the self-centred idea that the spread 

 of settlement necessarily means the extermination 

 or serious decimation of the shyer native birds. It 

 is time, too, that a national endeavor was made to 

 save the residuum of certain fine Australian birds 

 that are trembling on the verge of nothingness. 



For over one hundred years, now, a new and virile 

 human race has been forcing itself into the domain 

 of the native birds of this country, and it would 

 seem that we are undergoing, in this respect, a pro- 

 cess that other civilised countries passed through 

 hundreds of years ago, and of which little record 

 has been left. Australia is, in the words of the poet 

 O'Dowd, the "last sea-thing dredged by sailor Time 

 from Space," and here we have an absorbingly in- 

 teresting opportunity of observing how wild crea- 

 tures become reconciled to the civilisation of the 

 white man. 



Already many of our more familiar birds are be- 

 coming semi-domesticated. One is almost per- 



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