80 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
the nest is given, nor any indication of the locality whence the 
specimen was obtained. 
Here and there Mr. Campbell gives an interesting sketch of 
the situation in which a particular species is to be looked for. 
Take, for instance, his account of the haunts of the Victoria 
Lyre-bird, Menura victorie, which we will here quote :— 
“The toil attending the search for Lyre-birds’ nests, of all nesting out, 
is the most arduous, and must be experienced to be fully realised; because, 
firstly, these curious birds incubate in August, one of our wettest months 
of the year, consequently terribly boggy and greasy tracks have to be 
travelled; secondly, the nature of the country to be scoured is of the 
roughest and wildest that Gippsland can produce. You have to thread 
your way through thickly-studded hazel-tree scrub, with wet cat-head ferns 
up to your knees; then to tear through rank, rasping sword-grass which 
cuts your very clothes, not unfrequently nastily gashing your unprotected 
hands and face; next, entangled in a labyrinth of wire-grass holding you 
at every step, and hiding treacherous slippery logs, on one of which 
perhaps your right foot slips, causing you to perform a species of ‘ double- 
shuffle’ with your left in order to preserve your equilibrium, which, 
however, is as often destroyed as not, and, as a natural consequence and 
finale to the ‘ break-down,’ you land on your side with a grunt, and wallow 
amongst rank vegetation. To climb the opposite hill you cross on ‘all- 
fours’ a wet saturated log which naturally bridges the gully: in accom- 
plishing this awkward task, overhanging tree-fern fronds dash in your face, 
drenching you nearly as much as if some individual had thrown a pail of 
water over you. Notwithstanding the chilly weather there is always a 
humidity in these forests, and with such wholesome exercise you are soon 
bathed in perspiration, and gladly halt now and again for breathing-time at 
the head of some lovely gully where the scrub is not so dense, and you 
stand in one of Nature’s silent picturesque temples. .. . . Here the awful 
stillness of an Australian forest is hardly broken save by the somewhat 
soothing sound of a continual hissing and surging of the sea of Hucalypta 
foliage, some 200 feet towards the zenith, the chirp of the Yellow Robin, 
or a beautiful cadenza from a Lyre-bird down the gully.” 
As a contribution to Oology we doubt not that Mr. Campbell's 
book will be acceptable to many in this country, while in Australia 
it will be very useful in showing collectors what yet remains to 
be done. If, as the author supposes, some three hundred eggs of 
Australian birds have yet to be described, there is indeed a fine 
field for exploration open to young and ardent ornithologists. 
