^^^^B THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 55 



Queen to the president of the society, the Duchess of Portland, 

 was read : — " The Queen desires me to say, in answer to your 

 letter, that she gives you, as president, full permission to use her 

 name in any way you think best to conduce to the protection of 

 birds. You know well how kind and humane the Queen is to all 

 living creatures, and I am desired to add that Her Majesty never 

 wears Osprey plumes herself, and will certainly do all in her 

 power to discourage the cruelty practised on those beautiful 

 birds." We hope that the Queen intends these remarks to apply 

 as much to Humming-birds, Birds of Paradise, &c., as to Osprey 

 plumes. Feather decorations can as easily be made from 

 domestic or common birds as from the rarer kinds. 



Preservation of Native Fauna. — In the course of his 

 annual address at the meeting on 28th March, Mr. Thos. Steel, 

 F.L.S., president Linnean Society of New South Wales, spoke 

 as follows on the destruction of the native fauna : — " A matter 

 which calls for the active attention of all lovers of nature in 

 Australia is the preservation of the native fauna. The indis- 

 criminate and wanton destruction of birds and mammals which is 

 now going on over the length and breadth of the land is appalling. 

 It is bad enough when introduced pests like the fox are threaten- 

 ing the absolute extinction of such characteristic birds as the 

 Lyre-bird, but when to this is added the meaningless slaughter, 

 for the mere sake of killing, of anything, be it bird or mammal, 

 which is capable of being shot, by the so-called sportsman, it is 

 surely time to call a halt. A member of this society put 

 the case excellently when, in speaking of the purposeless 

 killing of the Native Bear, he said — ' A man who can go and 

 shoot bears for the fun of it should feel at home with a gun 

 among a flock of sheep.'* To this must be added the inadvertent 

 destruction of native animals through poison laid for rabbits. By 

 the careless use of poison, either in baits or in water, enormous 

 numbers of our native mammals and birds are being killed, and 

 as the latter include some of the most valuable insectivorous 

 species, their destruction must have its inevitable result in the 

 undue multiplication of noxious insects which will exact a heavy 

 toll from the crops of the agriculturists. As a community we 

 seem strangely slow to learn by experience. The introduction of 

 sheep and cattle, to say nothing of rabbits, has been a profound 

 factor in altering the balance of nature in Australia, and when in 

 addition useful and harmless creatures alike are persecuted out of 

 existence in a spirit of mere idle brutality, it is little to be 

 wondered at that nature retaliates in no uncertain way." 



* Mr. A. H. S. Lucas, " Handbook Aust, Assoc. Adv. Science," Melbourne 

 Meeting, 1890, p. 61. 



