156 
Stray Feathers 
The Emu 
L 1st Oct. 
stantial interest. These migratory birds are feeding on the mud 
flats of a small islet a few hundred yards from the main shore. 
When the tide rises and covers their food bed and shelter, they 
too suddenly rise and make for the sandspit of Milford, a few 
hundred yards from the mainland. A hunter tells the story that 
one of this flock was large and fat, and made good eating. The 
present writer considers he was in good company when he fed 
on the same flats with these birds some 8000 miles from Hobart. 
He now feels there is something lacking in southern hospitality. 
The hunter was referred to the close season of the Game Act, 
with much misgiving as to the result of the next high tide. — R. 
Haix, H.F.A.O.U., Hobart, 16/6/24. 
* * * 
Cuckoo and Emu-Wren.— When 1 called upon a Devon- 
port resident who indulges occasionally in Quail shooting, he 
showed me, as a great rarity, a Narrow-billed Bronze-Cuckoo 
(Chalcites basalis ) and a male Emu-Wren (Stipiturus mala - 
churns'), which he had taken together. While traversing some 
tussocky, swampy country not many miles away, towards the 
end of March last, he noticed a pair of the Wrens alternately 
bringing food to their foster-child. As my friend approached, 
the pair vainly tried to induce the young Cuckoo to descend into 
the tussocky tangle in which they themselves took refuge. Mr. 
A. J. Campbell, in his fine work on the “Nests and Eggs of Aus¬ 
tralian Birds,” mentions that, when in company with Mr. G. E. 
Shepherd, of the Victorian Field Naturalists' Club, he saw a 
nest of this Wren containing an egg of the Narrow-billed Bronze 
Cuckoo. This is the first instance I have met with in Tasmania 
of the Emu-Wren fostering the usurpers. — H. Stuart Dove, 
F.Z.S., W. Devonport, Tas. 
* * * 
The Birds of the Camp-Out. — In The Emu, V ol. XXIII., on 
page 293, Miss Fletcher, writing from a long experience in the 
Scottsdale district of Tasmania, states that the Crake noted “call¬ 
ing” there was most likely the Spotless Crake. As one of the 
compilers of the list of birds seen in Tasmania, I wish to express 
my thanks to Miss Fletcher for the correction, and I would like 
to say that Mr. Parsons and myself heard the call and were a 
little dubious about recording it; in any case, we showed that 
our observation was from the “call.” This shows the need of 
care in recording birds. In dealing with many of our birds, re¬ 
cords can be reliable only from skins actually collected on the 
spot. The information that Miss Fletcher gives in reference to 
the Emu-Wren is interesting. Judging by the weather we ex¬ 
perienced in Tasmania, the Island birds evidently do not expect 
fine weather until late in the season and commence nesting 
operations earlier than a mainlander would expect. — J. Neii. 
McGiep, R.A.O.U., King's Park, Adelaide. 
