BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



51 



NOTES. 



The Fauna of Australia. 



The attention of the Society for the Protection of 

 Birds is being called to the need for further bird 

 protection measures in various parts of the globe, 

 where sister societies appear to be much needed. 

 A New South Wales correspondent, Mr. J. W. R. 

 Clarke, writes at length on the disappearance of 

 the native fauna and flora of that colony. " In the 

 year 1899, at my instigation," he writes, "Mr. 

 Richard Driver brought in a Bill and passed it 

 through the Legislature for the protection of the 

 laughing-jackass and a few other birds, but since 

 then very little has been done towards preserving 

 other species of birds and animals that are now 

 very fast disappearing." 



If more active steps are not taken it is feared 

 that the brush turkey, bustard, emu, curlew and 

 pigeon, as well as the kangaroo and wallaby, will 

 soon be extinct, while other species are becoming 

 rare. 



Cape Colony. 



In Cape Colony a Bird Protection Society is 

 urgently required. The law is ready to hand were 

 any vigorous workers ready to make use of it, but 

 being of a permissive character it unhappily lies to 

 a great extent in abeyance. And meanwhile the 

 birds are being rapidly destroyed, with conse- 

 quences that will be serious to future tillers of the 

 soil, who will have to struggle against the many 

 insect enemies of field and garden without the 

 invaluable help of the insect-eating birds and 

 their hungry little families. The main clause of 

 the Protection of Birds Act of 1899 is as follows : — 

 " It shall be lawful for any Municipal or 

 Divisional Council to petition the Governor to 

 prohibit the destruction of birds within its 

 municipality or division, as the case may be : 

 Such petition shall set forth the kinds of birds 

 in respect of which, the period for which, and 

 the limits within which, such prohibition is 

 desired." 



Thus all that is needed is a working society with 

 a branch in each of the hundred Divisions into 

 which the colony is divided ; and we greatly hope 

 some bird-lovers in the colony (or some friends of 

 agriculture, if the birds have no force strong enough 

 on their side to work for love of them alone) will 

 take up the matter without delay, and will not only 

 see that the law is adopted, but that it is also 

 enforced. Guns, catapults, traps, and limed sticks 

 are reported to be making a clearance of beautiful 

 and useful species even around Claremont and 

 Wynberg, and the sugar-birds, saysies, canaries, 



and Cape robins are said to be in imminent 

 danger. 



The Seagull. 



The " Gull versus Herring " controversy has been 

 dragging a somewhat weary length in the Western 

 Morning News, the Scotsman, and the Morning 

 Post. It has been kept up on the one side mainly 

 by Mr. J. Brown, who seems as anxious as a 

 Russian admiral to turn his batteries on anything 

 that appears on the face of the waters. The name 

 "gull" is taken as including, not only the common, 

 herring, and black-headed gulls, but also the 

 black-backed (which is not a scheduled bird) ; 

 and it having been shown by the most surprising- 

 figures, — and on evidence that can hardly be con- 

 sidered scientific, — that gull and man cannot both 

 continue to enjoy a herring diet, the bird is further 

 charged with advancing inland, threatening and 

 devouring poultry, game, eggs, trout, grain, and 

 puppies. The other side of the argument has 

 been maintained by various writers, including 

 Sir Herewald Wake, Mr. F. G. Aflalo, and Mr. 

 A. H. Palmer, in temperate and cogent letters ; 

 and curiously enough one of the papers con- 

 taining correspondence on the subject contained 

 also a paragraph recording that " This has been 

 an unprofitable season for the Haddingtonshire 

 fishermen, as many as a thousand crates of 

 herrings having been thrown away on one day 

 for want of buyers" 



Nesting-Boxes. 



The making of nesting-boxes for birds has been 

 taken up as a village industry at Ballycastle, co. 

 Antrim ; and anyone wishing to procure boxes for 

 placing in gardens, or as patterns for the manu- 

 facture of others at boys' clubs and the like during 

 the winter months, may obtain a variety of shapes 

 and sizes from the manager of the Toy Factory, 

 Ballycastle, or from the Peasant Arts Society in 

 London, or from Mr. B. Alcock, of Cheadle. At 

 the same time it would be well to obtain Mr. Joseph 

 King's leaflet or pamphlet on the subject (to be 

 had from this Society), or Mr. Masefield's more 

 comprehensive guide. The boxes should be placed 

 in the garden in very early spring, or even in 

 winter, so that the birds may have ample time to 

 view the premises, as they are shyof new structures. 



Pigeon Houses on the Nile. 



Lady William Cecil, in her charming " Bird 

 Notes from the Nile, recently published, gives a 

 drawing of one of the quaint little houses made of 



