Vol. VIII. 



1909 



] Australasian Ornithologists' Union. i6q 



President's Address : The Most Useful Bird in 



Australia. 



It is a little difficult to state dogmatically which is our most useful 

 bird, but we can probably get somewhere near it, as the bird that 

 should hold the premier place should be the one that does most 

 good to the country in which it is found, and the least harm, both 

 as to the amount of food it consumes 'and also as to its numbers. 

 For instance, a bird may be very useful and yet scarce, consequently 

 the total amount of insects it consumes is small, and even then 

 many of those insects may not be injurious to man in any way. 

 Birds that take fruit, even though it may only be for one month 

 or less in the year, are held in disfavour by fruit-growers, although 

 for the other eleven months they are devouring more or less 

 destructive insects, and possibly without their aid it would be much 

 more difficult to grow that fruit in the first instance or rear the 

 young trees. 



I consider the Straw-necked Ibis is by far our most useful bird, 

 both as to its numbers, the amount of food it devours, and not being 

 antagonistic to human interests. They are found more or less over 

 the whole of Australia ; their principal food consists of caterpillars, 

 grassho]:)pers, fresh-water snails (which are often the host of the 

 liver fluke), centipedes, scorpions, beetles, and yabbies. The amount 

 consumed by each bird is very considerable, as from some I actually 

 counted there were 2,410 young grasshoppers, 5 fresh-water snails, 

 and several caterpillars, weighing 4I ozs. That will give a little 

 idea as to their immense utility. 



In Queensland they are to be found in the sugar-cane fields, both 

 devouring the grubs as they are turned up by the plough and also 

 continually poking their long beaks about in likely hiding-places for 

 beetles, which are so destructive to the sugar-cane. They also go 

 in flocks, often of considerable size, and work over the ground 

 together, and any young snakes they find up to about 6 inches in 

 length are snapped up directly, and they probably help to keep 

 these reptiles down more than any other bird, from their habit of 

 turning over bits of bark or leaves to see what is underneath, and so 

 discovering the hiding-place of any small reptile. 



This bird is also held in high esteem in other countries. Take, for 

 instance, Egypt. The ancient inhabitants of that country had a 

 dreaded enemy in the locust, and the bird that helped them more 

 than any other by devouring millions of these destructive insects 

 was the Ibis, and it shows in what high esteem it was held by the 

 Egyptians, when they regarded it as sacred, and frequently 

 embalmed it after death. 



Another bird which also destroys hosts of noxious insects is the 

 Bustard or Plain-Turkey, but unfortunately they are very much 

 sought after as an article of food, and are consequently getting more 

 rare every year ; therefore the total amount of good they do does 

 not compare with that done by the Ibis. 



The Pied Grallina or Magpie-Lark is another bird which lives 



