92 the victorian natuealist. 



The Occurrence of Parra Gallinacea, Temminck, in 

 Victoria. — Last Saturday I was afiforded an opportunity of 

 inspecting a very useful collection of Victorian insectivorous birds 

 in the museum of the Government Entomologist (Mr. Charles 

 French, F.L.S.) Among them I noticed the Comb-crested Parra 

 — a bird hitherto unrecorded for Victoria, although it has been 

 noted for the adjacent colony, New South Wales. I have since 

 ascertained that Mr. A. Coles, the taxidermist, supplied the bird, 

 which came, with three others, from the Boort Lakes district, 

 where they were shot last year by Mr. J. L. Ayers, a duck shooter. 

 The season before Mr. Coles received one or two Parras from the 

 same quarter. Therefore, it would appear that the specimen in 

 the possession of the Government Entomologist is not a solitary 

 example of this remarkable water-surface walking bird occurring 

 in Victoria, a fact not without interest to those who study 

 geographical distribution. — A. J. Campbell. 5th March, 1891. 



Are Sea Birds often Drowned? — On Saturday, 12th 

 September, in company with a detachment from Wesley College, 

 I was naturalizing in the neighbourhood of Carrum. We strolled 

 along the sands looking for any marine objects which might present 

 themselves. To my surprise we picked up two dead Penguins — 

 not just killed, certainly, but still in good enough condition for 

 Stuffing if it had been desired. There were no signs of the birds 

 having been shot. How had they come to be cast on the 

 shore of the bay ? I believe that there are no rookeries inside 

 the Heads, hence the bodies must have been brought in from the 

 ocean. It does not seem likely that they had been thrown over- 

 board from a vessel by someone who had tired of keeping thera* 

 According to a recent number of the Athenceum, the author of 

 " Rambles in a Fishing Village " (in Essex, England), states that 

 sea birds, even Divers, are often found dead on the shore. They 

 have, he thinks, been overtaken by storms when at a distance 

 from shore, and beaten down on the waves like so many flies, 

 until, wet through and exhausted, they perish miserably. 

 Penguins, absolutely deprived of the power of flight, would be 

 particularly at the mercy of a squall, if caught hy one. But is not 

 the instinctive knowledge of coming bad weather so strongly 

 developed in these sea birds that it can only be on very rare 

 occasions that they are overtaken at a distance from land? I 

 should be glad to learn what some of our ornithologists who 

 have studied the habits of the Penguins think on the subject. — 

 A. H. S. Lucas. 



