ao 
In addition to these resources the 
scentry is of such a nature as to make 
tlie trip quite north the while for tourists 
if accommodation were provided. Adam 
sort'a Peak and Mount La Perouse rre 
both fine mountains, with pretty gullies 
and waterfalls. The Ida Bay Caves also 
deserve attention. 
BIRD LITE NOTES. 
(By Robert Hall, C.M.Z-S.) 
Southport is not. Hie most inviting place 
the world has to offer the man who lias 
an interest in bird life; it lacks the rich 
lagoons that give food in abundance to 
the wading birds, and the neighbouring 
hills arc not well endowed with fruit- 
bearing trees, or insects ill fair quantity, 
to provide for passeres in general. Hope 
lay in the Southport lagoon for members 
of the plover family, but this was not 
realised- We bad a reasonable expecta¬ 
tion of seeing the last of the migratory 
birds before they started on their journey 
to the far north. Every year at this sea¬ 
son (April, the tringas and the gulden 
plovers set out for Northern Siberia; they 
have spent the summer in the South of 
Australia, where they have hunted the 
great lagoons for food, and when April 
comes the longing for the old home takes 
possession of them. It is then that they 
set out on their 8-tlOO miles’ flight, passing 
along the east coast of Australia, through 
Northern New Guinea and Manchuria, 
arriving about three weeks later in the 
“frozen north/’ Here they await the 
melting of the snow before proceeding 
further on their way. The snow melts at 
the rate of 1.00!) miles a week, and within 
five weeks of the birds having set out 
from Southport they have arlived within 
the basin of any one of the great X.E. 
Siberian rivers. 
These were the birds in which we were 
interested, but we were only able to re¬ 
cord the fact that they had M't. We 
looked for another interesting water bud, 
Richardson's skua gull. It, too, nests in 
the northern hemisphere, but occasion¬ 
ally one finds stragglers at this time of 
tile year in the estuary of the Derwent; 
this year we could find’ none. 
The silver gull (Larus novtp-hollandife). 
fortunately, was free from the worry of 
its parasitic cousin, the skua. Tt paddled 
quietly about the fringe of the Southport 
lagoon. A gnll-like bird, twice the size of 
the silver species, flew round the margin 
of the bay, close by our camp. Tt was the 
young of the pacific gull. During its first 
year of life it is brown. If we visit the 
same camp next year we should probably 
find this bird brown and white. If it were 
still about the camp on a third year's 
visit the light brown would have disap¬ 
peared—it would hp mostly snow-white, 
with an orange bill. 
The young of a closely-allied species 
(Larus dominions) has been known to ma¬ 
ture in one year, hut this appears to be 
quite exceptional. Two members of mil 
party visited the Acta 1 in Islands, bring 
ing back specimens of two other sea birds, 
the fairy penguin and the short-tailed 
petrel. This petrel l’.'uffinus lenuirostris), 
known to many a- “mutton-bird,’’ was 
found in burrows of the ground, in an 
interisting stage of its life history. The 
whole of the downy plumage was being 
pushed away from the bird by tlie tips 
of tlie coming “adult plumage.” The 
young were now being temporarily desert¬ 
ed by their parents; they appeared to b’ 
just one mass of oil and feathers, and 
•hr parents wpre encouraging them to 
leave their nests by staying away from 
th m or ten days. Without a fresh sup 
ply of food, the young would have an op¬ 
portunity of thinning off, and finally in 
the twilight leave for the ocpan. 
Tlie pipit (Anthus australis) and the 
sombre scrub-tit (Sericornis humilis' 
were two other birds found on the Ae- 
I me ns. Nearer our camp, which was 
pitched upon a raised bench, we met seve¬ 
ral families of tlie spine-billed honey- 
eater. They were the most common birds 
about the camp. The most noisy one was 
the crescent lioney-euter (M pyrrhoptera). 
One day we were visited by a flock 
of sordid wood swallows. Tt was a 
grief to us that this beautiful little bird 
should have been, apparently, ill-named. 
Apart front its grace of flight and useful¬ 
ness of habit, it is interesting on account 
of its plumage- It has ivhat are known 
to naturalists as “powder downs.” i.p., 
groups of disintegrating feathers, hidden 
beneath the contour feathers. 
We had expected to be free from our 
feathered friends ot the city; but no, 
a flock of starlings came upon us. the 
St urn us vulgarus of London and Hobart. 
These hat-dr little follows will fare better 
in this inclement climate than many an¬ 
other insect-eating bird. 
Among the parrots, the yellow-vented 
species was fairly numerous. It was the 
mly species we saw. Marly on Easter 
morning we heard a solitary thrush, not 
tiie bird that ".sings its song twice over.” 
hut the grey thrush (C. rectirostris) of 
our own woodland, in the earlv morning 
in the spring of the year this bird sings 
very finely. Hail the birds of the dis¬ 
trict been at all numerous, we should 
have known the morning that we landed 
