Correspondence. 41


BIRD NOTES FROM THE PERTH (WESTERN AUSTRALIA)

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.


Writing to Mr. SETH-SMITH, under date June 1st, 1912, Mr. E. Le

SOUEF, the Director of the Zoological Gardens at Perth, Western Australia,

sends the following interesting notes : —


“ Our Zoo. has made great strides since you saw it, and you would hardly

recognise much of it now. We reared a lovely pair of Manchurian Cranes

this season, which are now finer than their parents. We also have a fine

collection of Tantalus in perfect feather and with the cris-cross black and

white markings on the wings and rose-coloured rump. They make a lovely

colour scheme. We reared many White Swans, Carolina Ducks and Varie¬

gated Sheldrakes. Our Emus are laying. Last year the Queen Alexandra

Parrakeets laid, but other birds took their eggs, and the same thing happened

to the Red-headed Cardinals.


We have a pair of large Indian Hornbills doing very well. They are in a

large open aviary where they can fly round and hop from perch to perch, and

they have improved out of all knowledge since their arrival.


We bred two strong young Macaws (Ara macao), but a dreadfully hot day

killed them both when about ten days old. I think that the heat affected the

old birds so much that they could not manage to feed their young.


Our Geese and ducks are well, and I am putting dried meat into their

food, as the dry climate and poor sandy soil seems to prevent their breeding.

Ducks, however, breed freely a few miles from here where the soil is of clay.


We have beautiful palms forty feet high bearing thousands of seeds, and

all our trees are well-grown and very thick and suitable for birds, and the

result is that Honey-eaters of several kinds breed in the Zoo. We feed them

with honey and water suspended from the trees. We also have Fantails, Wag¬

tails, Zosterops, Chats, and many other birds as regular inhabitants of the

Gardens.


We breed the Southern Stone Plover every year, and they run loose among

the visitors and do not mind being lifted off their eggs.


We learnt a curious fact the other day, namely, that some of the Honey-

eaters kill and eat smaller birds. Our Head-keeper saw a Wliite-eyebrowed

Honey-eater chase and kill a Silver-eye ( Zosterops ) and start to eat it. I

suppose that it is need of animal food owing to insects being scarce here.


We counted eight hundred Black Swans, eighty Pelicans, and many hun¬

dreds of ducks on the Swan River the other day.”



