16 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
BIRD LIFE ABOUT GAYNDAH. 
Bv Dr. F. Hamilton Kenny. 
VoL. 2 
I desire to review in serried rank my friends — the birds 
of Gavndah. I shall use my primer. Leach’s “ Australian 
Bird Book,” for the purpose of naming and putting each unit 
in its natural order and family, and jot down anything I 
may have noticed or desire to say on bird life. 
The Orders : twenty-one of them, and each save one 
reveals a type, and is named accordingly. For instance, 
lari-formes and ardei-formes for gull-forms and heron-forms. 
Twentv of the orders have their names ending in this word 
“ formes ” ; Coccyges, the Cuckoos, present the sole exception. 
Then note how the Orders split up into Families. There 
are 165 families in this primer. They are not all Australian 
families, but relatives, allied families, living elsewhere in 
the world. How this helps one to get a comprehensive grasp 
of the world’s avifauna ! I think this is a great point in 
teaching, to show young people how Australian forms fit 
into the scheme of life, and how' from your known local forms 
you reach out to the unseen but easily comprehended allied 
forms of Africa, South America, Europe and Asia. This 
primer is excellent in that W'ay. After the families come 
genera and then the units — the malleable, plastic, variable 
bricks that in the W’orkshop of great nature are moulded 
and expressed, and wLich we men call species. Are not they 
the very threads of the warp and woof of the time spirit’s 
garment of life ? 
Well, now, having outlined my programme, let me say 
a word on Gayndah. The river is the main thing — the 
Middle Burnett. A wide expanse in flood time, the 
home of Ceratodus the Lung Fish, Mugil the Jumping Carp 
and Arius the Jew Fish. A broad beach of sand lines 
both banks, and here the birds play. — Pee-wee, Plovers, 
Herons, Cormorants and Pelicans. The yellow’ Jiissiaea 
covers the bank, and \mi note the humble w'hite Herpestis. 
wLo like the Queen in “ Alice in Wonderland.” can’t keep 
her crown on. (I should explain that the Corolla tumbles 
off with or without provocation). Huge blue gums 
{Eitcalvftns teniicornis) with their buds in long caps — like 
YTlsh hats I always think- grow W’ell. and so does an exotic 
— r eltis Atistralis, a superb shade tree. Children call it 
the berry tree— a green and blue, a red berry beloved and 
spread bv Grandmas of crow^ lineage. Yon see these big 
magpies tumbling and tossing and talking in berry time, 
almost hidden in the leaves. The river, ifs banks, the 
trees, really make up my locality, and a gloriously happy 
