viii 
PREFACE 
from other countries have done and are doing con- 
siderable damage to our agricultural industries. But 
I find the most compelling claim of Australian birds 
upon our affections to lie not so much in their money 
value as in the direct influence of beauty which 
they will exert upon anyone who cares to open his 
eyes and ears to the life that is all about him by 
green forest, open plain, or sounding shore. There 
is always something rich and strange happening in 
the populous world of birds ; I speak from experience 
when I say that I cannot take a half-day's walk or 
drive afield from the town without learning, of one 
bird or another, something which I did not know 
before. No single bird is there but has some pecu- 
liar beauty. The Cormorant reveals a shining lustre 
on his ebon wings which no art of modern silk- 
weaver could hope to imitate ; and the low, ground- 
built nest of the plain little Bush-lark may, as has 
been said of another bird's nest, " hold all the joy 
that is to herald the feet of many rose-red dawns." 
When, therefore, it is proposed to exterminate 
water-fowl at their nests or their roosting-places 
because they eat fish (any enthusiastic fisherman will 
prove to you that an adult Cormorant gets through I 
forget how many tons of choice fish in a year), or, 
again, when some one discovers that the Satin Bower- 
birds like fruits in season, and sets about a ruthless 
crusade against such of them as may still survive, 
reflect : a little concerted human action could 
destroy almost any native bird we have, and once 
