12 
The Queensland Naturalist February, 1934 
growing in natural, iron-containing waters in the neigh- 
bourhood of Brisbane. By comparison it is found that 
the protein bodies contain a substance similar in all ob- 
served characteristics to the granules of chromatin in 
Leptothrix . 
The remarkable similarity in the substance of the 
chromatin granules of Leptothrix and the protein bodies 
provides confirmative evidence of the extremely intimate 
relationship between the fundamental processes of the 
iron bacteria and those operating in the protein-produc- 
ing experiments. 
The demonstration of the chromatinic character of 
the protein bodies is extraordinarily significant. It im- 
mediately links up the results of the protein-producing 
experiments with many already recognised facts, such as 
the connection of iron with nucleo-proteins. Macallum’s 
demonstration of the occurrence of iron in the chromatin 
of nuclei apparently universally throughout the plant 
and animal kingdom is singularly pertinent in this con- 
nection. Actually the writer’s protein-producing experi- 
ments trace the connection between iron and chromatin 
back to its origin in the inorganic world. 
The chromatinic character of the protein bodies ac- 
quires additional significance from the contention of 
Minchin that the earliest living beings were minute, 
possibly ultra-microscopic, particles which were of the 
nature of chromatin. Minchin ’s contention is based 
upon the special functions which chromatin is known to 
perform in the life processes of organism. 
BIRD NOTES OF BRIBIE ISLAND AND THE 
PUMICE STONE PASSAGE. 
By Mrs. W. M. Mayo. 
The following notes cover visits at holiday times and 
some few year odd times bird observing” among the 
islands and waterways. 
The whole of Bribie Island and the Pumice Stone 
Passage, together with the mainland shore adjacent 
thereto, has been for about a decade a wild life sanctu- 
ary (?) As an actual fact, the sanctuary is shot over 
freely and constantly, and wild life there is growing very 
scarce and gun shy. Bribie Island is about twenty-four 
miles long, and has a wealth of trees — euccrtypts, casuur - 
inas, melaleucas and eucjenias , together with hanksia , and 
quantities of berry shrubs. Huge swamps and large tracts 
