52 From Magazines, ^c. rist^"luiy 



hatch, and 1 removed them from the hollow log. In December 

 she laid another clutch of three, and again incubated them steadily, 

 in spite of which they refused to be hatched. After she had sat 

 three weeks I examined the eggs, and found one egg clear and 

 nearly fully-fledged young in the other two, but decomposed." 



Ravenous Ravens.— Portarlington (Victoria). — Farmers in this 

 district are suffering heavy losses through the ravages of large 

 flocks of Crows. Owing to the dryness of the season and the hard- 

 ness of the earth, the birds invaded the paddocks where green 

 peas were being grown. After a visit by the Crows to a paddock 

 the plants bore the appearance of having been worked by pickers, 

 as scarcely a pod was left. When the peas became too dry the 

 Crows migrated to the bush near Swan Bay. In that locality 

 rabbits were being poisoned with strychnine in apples, and at day- 

 break the Crows and Magpies, which are ravenous owing to the 

 scarcity of their natural food, ate the dead rabbits. In this way 

 hundreds of Crows and scores of Magpies are being destroyed 

 daily. Such an invasion of Crows has never been known before 

 in this district. — Argus, 29/1/12. 



Cape Petrel. — At a meeting of the Linnean Society of New 

 South Wales, held 29th November, 1911, Mr. Basset Hull exhibited, 

 on behalf of Mr. L. Harrison, a skin of the Cape Petrel [Daption 

 capensis), which was captured alive at Turimetta Head, Narrabeen, ' 

 on the 15th October. The bird was squatting on the ledge of 

 rock above high- water mark, and, though apparently uninjured, 

 seemed incapable of flying. It lived in captivity for nine days, 

 on each of which it was placed in a large bath of water for a couple 

 of hours and fed upon morsels of fat. The fat was not taken 

 solid, but was macerated with the aid of its bill, and the water, 

 with its floating film of fat, greedily taken up. After feeding for 

 about an hour the bird would spend almost another hour in bathing 

 and preening its feathers. The bird floated high in the water, 

 and its legs hung loosely, and were turned outward at an angle 

 of 45° from the sagittal plane. The webbed feet were worked 

 slowly outwards, the effect being to keep the body practically 

 stationary. — Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., vol. xxxvi., p. 633. 



Mongoose in Fiji. — In an article in the April (1912) issue of The 

 Ibis on the avifauna of Fiji, Mr. P. H. Bahr, M.A., M.B., F.Z.S., 

 refers to the introduction of the mongoose into the islands. The 

 pest, he writes, was introduced about 25 years ago to keep in 

 check the numbers of rats which were destroying sugar-cane. 

 " The result, as elsewhere, has been that the rats are still found 

 in plenty, whereas the more defenceless birds have suffered. To 

 such an extent has the mongoose increased that it is now a common 



