PREFACE 
ix 
extirpated, not all the scientific world and its ap- 
pliances could restore the species to us. 
The birds noted in this book are those which have 
been known to occur either as residents or visitors 
within a radius of about thirty-five miles from Gee- 
long as the crow flies, country on the other side of 
Port Phillip being, however, excluded. It will be 
seen that I record 244 species, and I have no doubt 
that further investigations would add from twenty 
to fifty more to the list. In Victoria altogether there 
are hardly more than 400 species, so that ours is really 
a thoroughly representative district. 
Nor is this to be wondered at. No other Victorian 
countryside with which I am acquainted presents so 
diversified a physical aspect or such a consequential 
variety of birds of different orders. There are the 
plains of the west and north for the Crows, Hawks, 
and Quails ; the Barwon, Moorabool, and Leigh 
Rivers whose bushy margins shelter countless of the 
commoner small birds ; the open waters, reedy 
swamps, and mud-flats attracting Waterfowl in num- 
bers to the vicinity of Connewarre ; and, lastly, the 
Otway Forest, which, with the messmate bush adjoin- 
ing it on the east, is the home of some of the rarest 
and most interesting birds in Australia. 
I have adopted, so far as it was applicable, the 
scientific nomenclature put forth by Mr. Gregory 
Mathews in his List of the Birds of Australia^ published 
last year in connection with his greater work on The 
Birds of Australia^ now in course of issue in parts. 
