on his Visit to Australia.



137



logs and branches of trees for Parrakeets, which have access to a

smaller brick building for shelter. Here were a fair number of

examples of the commoner species of Platycercus and Psephotus.

Near to this is another flight aviary for Finches, sixty feet long

by thirty feet in width and over twenty feet in height with a

shelter house of some fourteen feet square. This is occupied by

the commoner “Ornamental” Finches. A large pheasantry was

in course of erection at the time of my visit, each compartment

being thirty-six feet long by fifteen feet wide, wire netting of

f inch mesh being used in order to keep out the introduced

Sparrows which are such a nuisance in the Eastern States of

Australia.


There is a flock of ten European Flamingoes, all looking

exceedingly well in a fair-sized ornamental pond surrounded by

palm trees.


The Adelaide Zoo has a much smaller income than any of

the other Zoos in Australia, and taking this fact into consider-

tion, I think its condition is extremely creditable to its Director.


* * ■»


THE MELBOURNE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.


I took the afternoon mail-train to Melbourne, where I

arrived about ten o’clock the following morning. The journey

is not an interesting one as one sleeps most of the time, and only

a few hours of the journey are spent in daylight. Part of the

track is through sandy desert, and however careful one is to

shut every window in the railway compartment, one wakes in the

morning to find oneself and one’s belongings smothered with fine

whitish sand. Few birds can be identified from the carriage

windows except such common kinds as Laughing Jackasses and

White-backed Magpies, the last of which were seen in numbers. I

identified Rosellas and Pennant Parrakeets and saw others which

I took to be Redrumps. Wood-swallows I also saw after passing

the Victorian border. Mr. Dudley Le Souef, the Director of the

Melbourne Zoological Gardens, kindly met me at the arrival

platform, and conveyed me in his carriage to my hotel. On the

way however we called on Mr. Archibald Campbell, the well-

known author of The Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds and

editor of The Emu , at the Custom House.



