GENERAL NOTES. 325 
They are only fed once in the twenty-four hours (in the 
evening), and at this meal each consumes about a breakfast-cup 
full of soaked bread and oatmeal mixed together. They are 
very slow at their food, taking about an hour to eat their meal. 
As they have no stones in their crop to assist digestion, it is 
necessary for them to masticate their food well. In the wild 
state they live on fern leaves, together with roots and berries of ° 
different kinds ; and it is common when walking in the bush to 
find small rootings where they have been feeding.” 
RoyAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.—The seven- 
teenth volume of the Journal and Proceedings of this Society, 
which has lately been issued, contains some very interesting 
papers—one, in particular, by Mr P. Beveridge, on the Abo- 
rigines inhabiting the great lacustrine and riverine depression of 
the Lower Murray, Murrumbidgee, Lachlan and Darling, being 
a record of twenty-three years’ personal observation (1845—1868). 
The author has been a long time in communicating his informa- 
tion; but, on the principle of better late than never, it is welcome 
now that it is made. There are no doubt many persons, parti- 
cularly among the older settlers in these Colonies, who, if they 
could be induced to communicate their early observations, could 
furnish a large amount of very valuable anthropological informa- 
tion. Mr Beveridge’s paper deals almost- exclusively with the 
social relations of the tribes inhabiting the district named, and is 
full of interest. Another useful contribution to the same branch 
of science is a paper “On Plants used by the Natives of North 
Queensland, Flinders and Mitchell Rivers, for Food, Medicine, 
&c., &c.,” by Mr E. Palmer, of Parramatta. The burning ques- 
tion of water supply is treated of in several papers—eg., “Some 
Facts bearing upon Irrigation,” by Mr H. C. Russell ; “ Irriga- 
tion in India,” by Mr H. G. M‘Kinney ; and “Tanks and Wells 
of New South Wales, Water Supply and Irrigation,” by Mr A. 
Pepys Wood. A interesting feature in the volume is the chart 
showing by curves the height of the western rivers during 1883 ; 
and this is followed by Mr Russell’s chart for the same year, in 
which a graphic, though somewhat rough, representation of the — 
rainfall is shown. The diminution of the rainfall during last 
last year to 17°96 inches, as an average for the whole Colony, 
from 25°28—the average for the previous nine years—was asso- 
ciated, as Australian stockowners have cause to remember, with 
most terrible drought. 
ED. 
A Fossit Ecc.—Mr H.C. Field, of Wanganui, communi- 
cates the following interesting note, under date September 4th :— 
“A few days ago, as one of my sons was riding home from 
Waitotara, his attention was drawn to an object in a seam of 
