Introduction; Migration. 
47 
the birds seen about his place tras most 3 ^,”^ 'island 
serve as resting places for the birds L accounted 
is evidently thus used, and the number or •r.v, Vi nu island as Heliao- 
for. This island corresponds thus in this respect with such “ 
land. ... It is the last place in the world, as vrewed from 
of Boobies hovering Jm offlcers laughed at the 
[a Dove and a Rail described ^ ^ q Au<rust 13‘^ 
notion of there being quails or anything to shoot yon it. . . Ayus . 
1841. the officers of ^ 
species, and 3 pigeons [‘doves in „hen among the islands 
330].” The contents of the S^^'^^lstlg tholgh^^^^^^ - " 
of the Arafura Sea are large and g) Merops ornatus, 
given by Stokes, 1. c. The ‘iwnsit “f the p. 250). 
across the Torres Straits has been hreedino- o-rounds in New 
This bird takes some weeks to travel from here to its bieedin. « 
South Wales. j ju, 7 . VIII. 1894) has 
Touching migratiy in ^ ,i-bere is nothing published in 
most obligingly furnished us with th » f,.;hntpd bv Dr. E. P. Ramsay 
the Proce^edffi; of any society b^nd a years ago , . . 
to the Ornithological Congress hel ■ • • pomnarativelv speaking, but very 
As there pointed out by Dr. ;;^::irrof .-Ls which 
few migratory birds m Australia, * t^gr many of them appearing regu- 
shift from one point of the country to ° ^.^h or west directly 
larly every season in the spring 0 le j have kept for the past 
the cold weather sets in. ^ and Lparture of the 
twenty years I will give you the date 01 tim 
species asked for ... . . ^ .Smith Wales during the 
^^Chaetura caudacuta. This bird aiiives^^i^ as December, but they 
hottest months of the year. I have no e middle of April. I have 
usually arrive in January and ° ^ ^ay on the wing, 
never seen them resting, they P^ss th the preceding 
^C„se^ ,acijt.,s. Arrives and departs at the same 
species, with which it is more often than not seen 
however, so numerous as C. caudacuta. These species arrive in 
^'Eurystomus yacijkus and Scythi ops novae appearance is influenced 
Northern Queensland about the end o 1 September, and in 1892 
greatly by the season; sometimes it is at t They leave 
ft wJ as late as the 12“ of tlctobev why 
again on the approach of cold weat ^ middle of September and departs 
Wales Eurystomiis arrives usually a ou Uedo-ed taken from their nesting 
again early in April. I near Newcastle on the 3’^'* of October, 1893; 
place in the hollow limb of a ^ 
this was very early for New South Wales. 
