THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



magpie, nor had I seen or heard of the habit, and prior to that 

 time I and a companion did a great deal of collecting and saw 

 many more magpies at all seasons of the year than I have since. 

 This is strongly impressed upon me by the fact that the months 

 when the magpies have their young, August and September, are 

 those in which I have for many years been accustomed to look 

 for a special genus of beetles, and for years no magpie came near 

 me. Now I always have to be on the look-out. 



I should also like to learn from some of our bird members the 

 average life of a magpie, and if so long as they live — provided, of 

 course, that they are not disturbed — a pair will continue to return 

 to the same nest, or, if one or the other dies, the newly-mated pair 

 will do so. 



I do not profess to have formed any theory for the habit I have 

 described. All I desire is to bring it before the club, by all of 

 whose members it must have been noticed, but where, so far as I 

 can recollect, it has never before been mentioned, and if my 

 paper has the effect I hope for I shall be amply recompensed for 

 all the adverse criticism I may possibly receive at the hands of 

 my ornithological friends. 



A HUNT FOR A NAME. 

 By T. S. Hall, M.A. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 13th March, 1899.) 



When confronted by a natural history specimen of any kind a 

 question which naturally arises in one's mind is as to its place in 

 the system in which it has been found convenient to arrange both 

 the animal and the vegetable kingdoms. We want to find out its 

 name, for, armed with this knowledge, we are at once given a key 

 which will open to us much of what is known of its structure and 

 relationships. Now the identification of an organism is usually no 

 easy matter, for animals and plants vary, and often it is exceed- 

 ingly difificult to know where to draw the line between two 

 species, or it may be between two genera. This is, of 

 course, a difficulty due to natural causes. Truly distinct species 

 may be closely allied, and though an expert in the group might 

 separate them with rapidity and unerring accuracy, still the novice 

 may be quite unable to honestly make up his mind as to their 

 distinctness. There is another difficulty, and that is the obscurity 

 of the original description which gives the organism its name. It 

 may be too brief to be of much practical value, and it may be 

 accompanied by figures which are mere smudgy caricatures and 

 more likely to hinder than to aid. Then, again, specialists in every 

 group naturally invent a set of terms which one has to master 

 before any description is intelligible. But how is one to begin ? 



