ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



771 



HAUNT OF THE SILVER, ELLIOT AND OTHER PHEASANTS. 

 Our Chinese house-boat on the Yung Fu River, Fo-kien Province, south-eastern China. 



repeat this trip and obtain all the species of 

 birds which we were able to secure. The causes 

 are numerous and I shall treat of them in detail 

 in a future article. Among others may be men- 

 tioned the rapid settling of surrounding coun- 

 tries and islands by migrating hosts of Chinese; 

 the burning of thousands of acres of jungle for 

 rubber culture ; the undiminished export of 

 pheasants in many places for millinery pur- 

 poses ; the systematic trapping year in and year 

 out of birds by native shepherds, and the com- 

 paratively recent establishment of huge cold 

 storage plants in the very heart of Asia for the 

 purpose of sending thousands of pheasants to 

 Europe. Within a very few years, many of the 

 species of pheasants will have vanished utterly 

 from the face of the earth. 



BIRD PROTECTION IN AUSTRALIA. 



From "Canary and Cage-Bird Life." 



"With reference to our notes of Ma}- 5 on the 

 feather trade, it is interesting to see that, ac- 

 cording to The Standard of May 6, the Aus- 

 tralian Commonwealth Minister of Customs has 



caused a proclamation to be issued prohibiting 

 the exportation of the birds mentioned in a 

 schedule, and the plumage, skins, and eggs (or 

 eggshells) of such birds, unless it is proved that 

 they are being exported for educational or 

 scientific purposes. The schedule is as follows: 

 Emus, Terns, and Gulls, Egrets, Herons, and 

 Bitterns, Lorikeets, Cockatoos, Parrots, Dollar 

 or Roller Birds, Kingfishers, Bee-eaters, Cuck- 

 oos, Lyre Birds, Pittas, Robins, Ground 

 Thrushes and Chats, Wrens, Tits, Thick-heads, 

 and Shrike, Sun Birds, Bower Birds, Rifle 

 Birds, Grebes, Albatrosses, Finches, Orocles, 

 and Shining Starlings. A second proclamation 

 places a like prohibition upon the importation 

 of the plumage and skins of Kingfishers, the 

 Macaws, and Parrot of the green variety, the 

 Stork tribe, the Heron tribe, the Ibises and 

 Spoonbills, the Todies, the Cock of the Rock, 

 the Quexal or Resplendent Trogon, the Birds 

 of Paradise, the Humming Birds, the Monal. 

 any one of several species of Asiatic Pheasants of 

 the genus hophophorus, as the Impeyan Pheas- 

 ant; any one of several species of Asiatic Pheas- 

 ants of the genus Argusianus, as the Argus 

 Pheasant; the Crowned Pigeon; any of the sev- 

 eral species of large crested pigeons of the 

 genus Goura, inhabiting New Guinea and adja- 

 cent islands, the Rheas, and the Owls." 



