The Zoologist — August, 1874. 4091 



year 1839 the whole of the southern aud eastern portions of that country 

 was suddenly visited by millions of the little grass parrakeet {Melopsittacus 

 undulatus) ; and a year or two later swarms of a species of waterhen [Tri- 

 honyx ventralis) spread themselves like a cloud over the Swan- River district, 

 destroying fields of corn and garden-produce and committing ravages unheard 

 of before ; and both the species have kept their hold until the present day, 

 but of course in much smaller numbers. Although not necessarily bearing 

 upon the preceding remarks, it may be here mentioned that young birds 

 appear to wander further from their native homes during the first autumn 

 or year of their existence than they do afterwards, going out, as it were, to 

 see the world before settling down for the proper business of their lives ; 

 hence, doubtless, it is that the young of so many of the rarer northern 

 species (eagles, gulls, divers, &c.) are found further to the south than the 

 old birds." — Page 7. 



•"D^ 



The observation that the last remark does not necessarily bear 

 on the subject of partial migration, is a very true one ; equally 

 truthful is the statement that young birds go further in any given 

 direction than the old ones. I have often observed this on a 

 limited scale among our noteworthy birds of whatever species; 

 thus we read, in the pages of the ' Zoologist' or the columns of the 

 'Field,' of the slaughter of a golden eagle, a whitetailed eagle, an 

 osprey, a peregrine, &c., in some out-of-the-way and therefore 

 unexpected localily, and we invariably, or almost invariably, find 

 the announcement accompanied by the words " a bird of the 

 year," or " in immature plumage," or " nestling plumage," or 

 some similar explanation that it was not a mature and adult bird 

 travelling for its own pleasure or on its own business. I deduce 

 from long-continued observation of birds, whether peifectly at 

 liberty, as hawks or robin redbreasts; in a state of half-liberty, as 

 pigeons, doves, and bedcherrygahs; or in more strict confinement, 

 as canaries, that parent birds will allow none of their children to 

 remain near the family seat (as we may consider the nesting-place) 

 after they are able to provide for themselves. This seems all but a 

 universal law of Nature, and of course tends to many manifest 

 results; such, for instance, is the leaving to the parents the means 

 of sustenance which they had always enjoyed ; and such also is the 

 dispersion of the species over a larger area, and thus preventing 

 that crowding on a limited space which is always prejudicial to the 

 welfare of a species. Although this fact is so well known to the pre- 

 servers of game, yet with strange pertinacity they adhere to the 



