78 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Shouting and laughing-, everyone now plied his or her 

 scoop as busily as possible, baling up the writhing delicacies 

 at top speed, to make as good use of the short time available as 

 could be. 



No sooner had the sun thrown his first ray on the water than 

 as if by magic, with the same common accord with which they 

 had risen to the surface, they all disappeared, sinking lower and 

 lower to the depths below, until not a single sign of their pre- 

 sence was to be observed in the very spot where, a moment 

 before, the water was perfectly muddy with animal life. 



Our share of these doubtful delicacies was three great 

 pailsful of an almost solid mass of repulsive, coloured worms, 

 writhing and twisting about in slimy embrace, in anything but 

 an inviting manner for creating an appetite. 



Although I tried to harden myself to tackle this forbidding- 

 looking tit-bit au naturd with a piece of stick, I could not 

 manage it, and our hosts, seeing the failure, had some cooked. 

 In that state they were, in appearance, like balls of dark-green 

 spinach, and by no means unpalatable, tasting somewhat like a 

 mixture of oysters and sea- weed. — From " My Consulate in 

 Samoa" by Williavi B. Churchward. 



NOTES ON DR. E. P. RAMSAY'S " LIST OF AUS- 

 TRALIAN BIRDS." 

 By a. J. Campbell. 



(Read before the Field Naturalists^ Club of Victoria, i oth Septem- 

 ber, i888.y 

 Much interest is centred at the present time in the Geographi- 

 cal Distribution of Species. 



We owe a debt to Dr. Ramsay for his tabular list of all the 

 Australian birds at present known, showing the distribution of 

 the species over the Continent of Australia as well as adjacent 

 islands. The list is full of interest to naturalists generally, but 

 to the working ornithologist and oologist it is to be highly 

 prized as a useful and valuable reference. I should recommend 

 those who have it not to purchase a copy, which may be 

 ordered through George Robertson and Co., Limited, Mel- 

 bourne ; and if the author has not already presented one, the 

 committee would do well to secure a copy for the Club's lib- 

 rary. 



Dr. Ramsay states the present edition is merely a forerunner 

 of a great work he is preparing for the Press on the birds of 

 Australia. 



In view of this fact, and in order that Dr. Ramsay's Geo- 

 graphical Distribution may be as complete as possible, I 

 shall now endeavour to treat the list under consideration in a 

 generous but critical spirit, which, I trust, will be accepted as^ 



