164 
NATURE NOTES. 
limitation of the districts to such boundaries as could be shown 
to be the breeding places of the species desired to be protected, 
the amendments recommended by the Committee were finally 
adopted. It is distinctly not intended by the Bill to put a stop 
to the ordinary birds-nesting by boys — a practice which has 
frequently ended in encouraging a lasting taste for natural history 
— and it will be found that the Bill contains provisions for giving 
thorough publicity to the fact that an area is to be protected. 
An Act which incorporated the views of the Committee has 
already passed through the House of Commons, and after con- 
siderable amendment has been read a third time in the House 
of Lords. The next stage requires its re-appearance in the 
House of Commons, where the amendments inserted in the 
House of Lords will have to be considered. These amendments 
may be taken as embodying the opinions of the Committee, and 
as a consequence the Committee not only approves of the Bill, 
but desires that it may become law. For this purpose it is 
necessary that the Bill should receive all possible support, and 
it is suggested that the various local Natural History Societies 
throughout the kingdom should at once endeavour to secure the 
co-operation of their borough and county members respectively 
in obtaining the acceptance by the House of Commons of the 
Bill as it now stands. 
C. T. Vachell. 
WILD LIFE IN TASMANIA. 
V. 
HE little clearing in which our camp is pitched lies just 
on the verge of the plains, where the heavily-timbered 
brown soil gives place to a whitish sand, shunned 
by the selector and despised by the agriculturist. 
Here the country is somewhat park-like in character, being 
gently undulating, and possessing timber which, although dwarf 
in comparison with that rooted in the deep basaltic soils, is yet 
worthy of being placed with the old oaks and beeches of the 
mother-country. The gnarled and weather-beaten gums and 
peppermints are sufficiently far apart to enable the horseman 
to get about without much difficulty, and to see a considerable 
distance ahead, which is an impossibility in the “ green bush.” 
The wary rider will, however, always keep a tight rein, and his 
weather eye open, for the ground is strewn with the trunks 
of old trees and with limbs which have been torn by the 
gales from the living ones, and which are nearly hidden by 
the knee-high, and often waist-high, growth of heather and 
small scrub. 
Another source of danger to the unwary traveller is the 
