216



Correspondence.



others continued to arrive, preparatory to their descent upon the

edges of the ponds and streams in the neighbourhood.


A curious habit of the Maned Goose or “ Wood Duck ” is

recorded by one of Mr. North’s correspondents, namely, that of a

pair taking charge of the young of several other pairs, besides their

own. “ Where they breed in great numbers,” writes Mr. Thos. P.

Austin, “one pair of old birds will sometimes take possession of

several families. At Wambiana Station, on the Macquarie Biver,

my brother and self saw a pair of old birds with over fifty young;

we tried to count them, but could not, but were sure there were

over fifty, and we could easily distinguish four different clutches,

probably more.”


It is curious that two species of Teal so closely allied as are

the Chestnut-breasted and Slender Teal should inhabit the same

country, although one is more generally distributed than the other.

Mr. North gives full accounts of both these species which have

confused many ornithologists. In the Chestnut-breasted Teal

(Nettium castaneum) the male is brilliantly coloured, with green

head and neck and red breast, but the female is practically indis¬

tinguishable from the two sexes of the Slender Teal ( N. gibberifrons).

The former, of which several may be seen at the London Zoological

Gardens, is the rarer, occurring chiefly round the coast line of Aus¬

tralia and in Tasmania, whereas the latter is widely distributed in

Australia, and occurs also in New Zealand and the adjacent Islands.



CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, ®c.


A USEFUL MEDICINE FOR GASTRO-ENTERITIS.


Mr. P. F. M. Galloway, writing of illnesses in birds, mentions that they

die chiefly through lung or bowel troubles, the latter being due to gastro¬

enteritis.


He says— “ The symptons are these—A bird that has been looking nice

“ and tight in feather is suddenly seen to look soft in feather. It eats well, but

“ loses flesh rapidly, which is due to the pain in the bowels, causing the bird to

“look puffed out and soft.”


Mr. Galloway then goes on to speak of Ditchfield’s Tonic Drops, which

he says he tried with a severe test. A Golden-crested Wren was very bad with

gastro-enteritis. The little bird was picked up from the floor of an aviary, and



