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Walter Goodfellow—A Collector on Melville Island



Melville Island is a wonderful place for birds, and without the blacks

would make an ideal sanctuary. I cannot see that it is much good for

anything else. During the wet season the whole island is water-logged,

and in the long dry one hardly a drop except swamp water to be found.

I arrived there at the beginning of the wet season which was very late

this year, and at times had the camp entirely under water, but the

dry period had well set in before I left, and the stream I got my water

from was then beginning to be nothing more than a few water holes in the

deeper parts, and most of these would disappear too in time, and the

rest become contaminated by the blacks and wild animals. I therefore

cannot imagine anyone except a bird enthusiast like myself ever

wanting to go there. I went solely to collect rare ducks and geese which

breed there, so, with only two exceptions, I brought no other birds

away. The ducks took up all my time as I had to hand rear them, and

I thought if I got a permit to bring these out of Australia, which I did,

it was as much as I could expect, and I am extremely grateful to the

authorities for granting it. There were many lovely birds that I

should have loved. The natives are no good at all at catching birds.

The only time they can get them alive is during the nesting season. The

white men told me they then brought in billycans full of young Cockatoos,

Parrakeets, and other birds every day for food. These I am sorry to

say are generally thrown on the fire alive. People at home possibly

never think of the enormous amount of cruelty that goes on daily

in every part of the world among uncivilized people, and what birds

and beasts have to suffer at their hands. I meet with it wherever I go.


I was constantly surprised at the number of beautiful and interesting

Australian birds still unknown to aviculturists over here. I suppose

when the exportation of birds was unrestricted, more attention was

paid to the Parrakeets and Seed-eating Finches, to the exclusion of the

still more interesting insectivorous and nectar-feeding kinds, of which

there are innumerable species. How I longed when some fresh bird

came around the camp, for a bunch of ripe bananas to hang up nearby,

just to see what I could attract. I fancy I should have had half the

denizens of the bush come around. I used to do this in parts of South

America, and it was surprising what unlikely birds it attracted. On

Melville there is no fruit to be had of any description, neither did I see



