THE DESTRUCTION OF BIRD LIFE IN AUSTRALIA. 77 



Newspaper writers have made many emphatic assertions that the poisoning of rabbits, and 

 particularly the use of the poison cart, is responsible lor the decrease of bird life in Australia, and the 

 consequent increase of insect pests of all kinds, especially the blow -flies. Now, whilst not an advocate 

 of the poison cart as the most effective method of dealing with the rabbit pest. I dispute these state- 

 ments and would place the following facts before my readers. 



The poison cart is a machine on two wheels containing a coulter that can be raised or lowered 

 by the driver so that it scratches a shallow furrow in the soil. Attached is a receptacle containing 

 the poisoned bait which is dissolved phosphorus mixed with bran or pollard, etc., into a stiff dough. 

 This is cut off and dropped in pellets so that it falls at more or less regular intervals into the furrow. 

 There are only two ways in which birds can be poisoned through the use of this machine. One is by 

 following down the furrow and gobbling up the phosphorus baits, and the other through eating the 

 internal organs of the rabbits poisoned. What birds eat phosphorus baits ? An inquisitive magpie 

 or a laughing jackass might occasionally try them, or a night-hunting curlew, seeing the bait shining, 

 might test one to see if it was alive. But the danger to ordinary bush birds is slight. Then as to the 

 birds that eat the dead rabbits, we find even the crows can do this with impunity when they feed upon 

 the carcase alone, as they generally do where dead rabbits are plentiful. The creatures that suffer 

 most from the poison cart baits are the small night-hunting marsupials, and the monitor lizards or 

 gohannas of the bushman. These carrion-eating lizards have been killed off in hundreds in our western 

 country through eating poisoned rabbits. Now. as these active tree-climbing lizards are the deadly 

 enemies of all tree-nesting birds, crawling into the hollow limbs and eating both the eggs and young 

 nestlings, I consider that the poison cart through killing them has benefited the birds a great deal 

 more than it has harmed them. If, as some writers state, most of the small carnivorous animals in 

 the bush have died through eating poisoned rabbits, it has doubtless altered the balance of nature, 

 but it has swung the pendulum in favour of our birds. 



The fact that the destruction of the birds that were the greatest check upon the blow-fly pest 

 commenced, and was almost complete, long before the era of the poison cart, seems to have escaped 

 the attention of the general critics. I refer to the carnivorous and carrion-eating birds, for these were 

 instrumental in clearing away the offal and carrion in the old days, and were therefore most valuable 

 in fighting the blow-flies, for they destroyed their breeding grounds and the swarming maggots. 



Dingoes, wild dogs, and wedge-tailed eagles were the first enemies that the sheep men had to 

 deal with when they entered into fresh country, and in poisoning off these pests, the squatters inci- 

 dentally destroyed nearly all the smaller carnivorous eagles, hawks, and other scavengers. 



In unstocked land the wedge-tailed eagles were very numerous, and caught and killed 

 young kangaroos, full-grown wallabies, and the smaller marsupials in a most business like 

 manner. Under the new conditions, when sheep entered the lard, these birds not only devoured dead 

 carcases but played havoc with the lambs also. I once counted forty dead eagles scattered round 

 a freshly poisoned sheep on a newly-occupied holding in north-west Australia. One of the most 

 numerous useful scavenger birds that used to swarm all over the inland country in old days 

 was the whistling eagle. In the vicinity of the killing yards of any of the out-back stations, 

 one could often count over a hundred of these handsome birds resting on the fences and surrounding 

 trees. While this was one of the most important species, there were many others just as useful, but 

 they have nearly all now vanished owing to the strychnine baits, and in a lesser degree to the guns of 

 sportsmen and farmers, who look upon all hawks as vermin or enemies to the poultry yard. 



The only numerous carrion birds remaining that have any important bearing on the blow-fly 

 question, besides being active agents in destroying other insect pests like the grasshoppers and the 

 cutworms, are the carrion crows. Notwithstanding all the damage they do in some districts to lambs 

 and sheep, and in spite of the honest if misguided efforts of the officers of the Pasture Protection 

 Boards, who spend thousands of pounds every year in New South Wales in paying bonuses for the 

 heads of crows, these birds seem to be able to hold their own and increase in numbers in all the settled 

 districts. In many places the station owners look upon the crow as a useful bird, and recognise its 

 value as a scavenger, and, though not actually protecting it, they do not molest it. 



