JANUARY 11 



an eye from a water-breathing animal to an air-breather, 

 tens of thousands of years have not sufficed so to 

 alter the respiratory system of aquatic mammals as 

 to exempt them from the necessity of coming to the 

 surface to breathe, thereby exposing themselves fatally 

 to assault by restless, ruthless man. 



Ill 



It is good to note that the example set by the 

 British Parliament in passing legislation for mans and 

 the protection of rare or desirable birds is Kats 

 being followed by colonial legislatures. The attention 

 of the Tasmanian Government has been called recently 

 to the enormous destruction of mutton-birds, a species 

 of shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris), which has been 

 going on at an accelerated rate for some years past on 

 the Furneaux Islands, a group lying between Tasmania 

 and Victoria. Already a kindred species, Puffinus 

 brevicauda, which used to breed in vast numbers on 

 islands in Bass's Strait, has been all but exterminated, 

 owing to the ruthless way in which the colony was 

 devastated. Professor Newton recorded 60,000 breeding 

 birds having been taken there in a single season. It 

 is only in the breeding season that these birds are 

 marketable for their fat, 'the young,' as Gould de- 

 scribed them seventy years ago, 'being literally one 

 mass of fat, which has a tallowy appearance.' The 

 figures quoted by Newton sink into insignificance 

 compared with those supplied to his Government by 

 the Commissioner of Police in Launceston (Tasmania), 



