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also had experience of in the kingfisher, which is so common on the 

 Yarra banks. We were walking one evening in the Richmond 

 paddock, intent on examining, and puzzling how to procure, the 

 various beautiful species of Loranthus, which are parasitic on some 

 of the venerable Eucalyptideae and Casuarinae, when we were 

 startled by a kingfisher darting by with great fury, and uttering at< 

 the same time a loud scream. Surely she must have a nest near, 

 we soliloquised, and after a careful examination, heard the harsh 

 cries of the young birds proceeding from a hollow branch of a very 

 tall gum tree. The whole of the time we were making our obser- 

 vations the female flew at us many times in great anger; but as 

 soon as we left the spot she returned to her nest, and soon quieted 

 the young whose cries had betrayed them. 



This bird, although nesting in the Eucalyptus, procures its food 

 in the same manner as our Alcedo ispida; and after immersing 

 itself, and taking its prey, beats it against the branch of a tree to 

 deprive it of life. Mr. Dixon, in his very delightful little book, 

 " The Dovecot and the Aviary, " p. 305, which we cannot too 

 strongly recommend to our readers, gives us a striking instance of 

 the power of instinct: — "Kingfishers were brought up and kept by 

 me with the other birds, and, in fact, one nest of kingfishers was 

 confined in a separate cage with two hobby hawks. These hawks 

 were brought up from the nest by my apprentice living with me at 

 that time ; he also had the care of tl^e kingfishers, which were fed 

 on dace and gudgeon until they could manage for themselves: but 

 jt so happened that he forgot my kingfishers, while he though! of 

 his own hawks, and I was astonished one day by observing, w>hen 

 he threw into the cage the meat cut up into small pieces, these said 

 kingfishers dashing down upon the meat, and, dashing it against 

 the perches on which they alighted, as if to kill the imagined prey, 

 and at length bolt it." 



On the bark of the Eucalypti many prettily-marked species of 

 Hemiptera (plant bugs) may be obtained, and those interesting 

 insects, the ichneumons, whose singular habits are deserving of 

 notice here, from the vast number of them which appeared simul- 

 taneously with the myriads of moths which infested the whole of 

 the western coast this summer (1855), and caused needless alarm 



