34 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Febbuaky 1, 1898, 



Australia, and Mr. Hemsley now acknowledges that it is 

 much richer in useful plants, and especially in plants 

 yielding edible fruits, than any other part of Australia. 

 Mr. Bailey (and who knows better '?) says that Queensland 

 is especially rich in plants of economic value ; therefore 

 Mr. Hemsley's general statement that " Australia contains 

 comparatively few plant.s yielding products ol economic 

 value" is misleading on the face of it. It is very like 

 begging the question to say that Queensland contains a 

 relatively large Asiatic element, as distinguished from the 

 characteristic Australian vegetation ; this is not the point 

 at all. The plants are in Australia and form part of its flora ; 

 their origin in this case matters not. In conclusion I 

 trust Mr. Ifemsley will not think I am playing the part of 

 a carping critic, but I must join issue with him once more. 

 Ilie statement that " the aborigines use the bark thnnm nff" 

 from gum trees, etc., for shelter (mitr, p. 102), is incorrect. 

 The bark thus shed or thrown off is utterly useless for 

 the purpose assigned to it by Mr. Hemsley, being too 

 brittle, very thin, crumbling almost to the touch, curled 

 up by the sun, and only shed in pieces absolutely too small 

 for any practical purpose whatever. The bark used by 

 the aborigines, and by many colonists at the present time, 

 is the true cortex, stripped from the tree by human agency — 

 not nature's. Diagonal cuts are made round the circum- 

 ference of a tree about a foot or so from its base, and 

 another series of cuts, also round the circumference, about 

 six to eight feet from those below ; an incision is then 

 made down the length oi' the trunk, the bark is tapped 

 gently with an axe on the severed part, and, if the sap is 

 well up, the result is a broad strong sheet of bark peeled 

 right off from round the trunk. Needless to say, this 

 operation kills the tree. I forgot to mention that Mr. 

 Bailey is indeed surprised to hear that the produce of the 

 plants named is known to commerce, and would be pleased 

 to have more information on the point. 



Taringa, viu Brisbane, Fred. Whitteron. 



Queensland, 29th October, 1897. 



[As Mr. Whitteron has renewed his accusation that I 

 had stated that " the flora of Australia contains compara- 

 tively few plants yielding products of economic value," I 

 will repeat here the opening sentences of my article 

 (Kno^t:,edge, May, 1897, p. 118), which to my mind convey 

 a very different meaning from that portion of a sentence 

 he-quoted in his first letter (September, p. 212) : — " The 

 popular impression respectmg the Australian flora is that 

 it contains comparatively few plants yielding products of 

 economic value, and this is a correct impression so far as 

 edible fi-uits and vegetables are concerned ; but it should 

 be remembered that this is true of most countries. Fruits 

 and vegetables that come to our tables are the result of long 

 generations of cultivation. Take the crab, carrot, parsnip, 

 celery, or almost any of our fruits or vegetables in a wild 

 state, and we should get very little satisfaction out of 

 them. This, however, is a little digression. Australia is 

 by no means poor in vegetable products, and other 

 countries have been greatly enriched by importing and 

 cultivating some of them." 



I maintain that the foregoing sentences fairly express 

 the actual facts, and that Mr. Whitteron's wild fruits, with 

 few exceptions, would only be eaten by aborigines or 

 persons in extremities. Returning to the forty species of 

 Ficus or fig : Mr. Maiden, in his " Useful Native Plants of 

 Australia," enumerates only three species, two of which 

 he says are used as food by the aborigines ; and of the 

 third he cites a traveller who pronounced the fruit " very 

 good," and a writer who states that the fruit is not 

 edible ; adding himself that the appetites of explorers 

 frequently become voracious and not too discriminating. 



I do not pretend that Mr. Maiden's book is complete and 

 perfect, and I think it is very probable that there are better 

 figs than he was aware of when he wrote. To give another 

 example. In Sir Joseph Banks's recently published 

 " Journal," p. 299, is the following passage : — " AVe had 

 still fewer fruits ; to the southward was one resembling a 

 heart cherry {Ewienia), only the stone was soft. It had 

 nothing but a slight acid to recommend it. To the north 

 ward we had a kind of very indifferent fig ; a fruit 

 we called plums, and another much like a damson, both in 

 appearance and taste. Both these last, however, were so 

 full of a large stone, that eating them was but an unprofit- 

 able business. AVild plantains we had also, but so full of 

 seeds that they had little or no pulp." 



Here, again, I do not assume that Sir Joseph Banks and 

 his party, with all their knowledge and much as they 

 needed such things, found all or the best the country 

 yielded ; but who has read the narratives of the many 

 subsequent explorers in the same and different districts 

 knows how little they found that served to keep body 

 and soul together. Therefore I think the general and 

 qualified manner in which I wrote is fully justified by the 

 facts. — W. BoTTiNG Hemsley.] 



EGG t'OLLKCTING IX IT.S RELATIOX TO SCIEXCE 

 To the Editors of Knowledge. 



Sirs, — In connection with Mr. Field's article in your 

 December issue under the above title, I beg to ask the 

 following questions: — (1) Why a light-coloured egg so 

 persistently appears in the clutches of the eggs of some 

 birds and very rarely or never in others ? (i) Why are 

 the eggs of some birds coloured at or around the smaller 

 end, whilst those of others are scarcely ever so coloured ".' 

 Never having accepted the theory that when a light- 

 coloured egg appears in a clutch it is owing to exhaustion 

 of the pigment, I paid considerable attention to this subject 

 in the spring of 1889, taking the blackbird into my con- 

 fidence. 



The following observations, I think, clearly demonstrate 

 that the exhaustion theory cannot be supported by facts: — 



Marih 19tli.— Eggs, four ; all light in colour ; first and third the 

 lightest ; all infertile. 



March 25th. — Eggs, four; three dark eggs, one light. This brood 

 died in the nest, probably from the cold. One infertile egg. 



Slareh 25th. — Eggs, three; the first the lightest coloured egg. All 

 these were fertile. 



April 15th. — Eggs, fi^e ; four eggs of the normal colour, one xery 

 light. 



April 15th. — Eggs, five; three dark, two light. In this clutch the 

 lightest coloured eggs weighed one hundred and twenty grains each, 

 the dark ones one hundred and eighteen grains each. 



April 20th. — Eggs, three; one egg light in colour; all fertile. 



April 20th. — Eggs, five ; tliree dark, two very light. 



April 20th. — Eggs, four ; three dark, one light. 



April 22nd. — Eggs, three .- second egg laid the lightest. 



April 24th. — Eggs, four ; first and fourth light eggs. , 



April 28th. — Eggs, four ; first and fourth light eggs. 



May 6th. — Eggsj four; the three first laid light in colour, the 

 fourth darker and very much flecked; this egg infertile. 



May 13th. — Eggs, six. In this clutch the fii'st four were typical 

 eggs of the blackbird; the fifth egg very light in colour; the sixth 

 egg dark, and very much coloured at the small end. These eggs were 

 all fertile excepting the fourth, which showed no signs of fertility. 

 This clutch was laid by the same bird, and iu the same nest, as the 

 clutch dated March 25th. 



The litflit-colmired eggs arc, as a rule, a few grains heavier than 

 the dark, and a dark egg often followed a warm moist day. 



Again, in 1890, 1 watched a nest from day to day and 

 obtained a clutch of five eggs — which I have before me. 

 The first four laid are typical eggs of this bird, but the 

 fifth — the last laid — has a beautiful pale green ground, 

 with flecks and blotches of rich brown. This clutch would 

 be considered by the votaries of the exhaustion theory as a 



