312 
Notes and Comments 
r The Emu 
L April 
Notes and Comments 
The article on the bird life of Coomooboolaroo Station, by Mr. 
C. A. Barnard, which we publish in this number, is piobably 
one of the most valuable papers ever contributed to the Emu. 
Mr. Barnard has been observing the birds in his locality for 50 
years, and the locality is so far from large centres of population 
that the changes that he has observed in the numbers of various 
species cannot be attributed directly to interference by man. 
Indirectly, however, human occupation has brought about great 
changes, principally through the stocking of the country with 
cattle, which, especially in dry seasons, denude the country of 
grass, thus depriving seed-eating birds of food and terrestrial 
species of shelter. The disappearance of almost all permanent 
waterholes in the creeks is probably also due to cattle, which, by 
constantly trampling about their margins, keep them in a muddy 
condition, and thus cause them to silt up. 
Mr. Barnard read a paper detailing the more striking changes 
he had observed, at the recent Rockhampton Conference, where 
it aroused great interest and led to a valuable discussion. At out 
request he and his brother, Mr. H. G. Barnard, kindly added 
many additional notes, so that the paper now pubhshed contains 
a complete account of all the birds observed by them in the dis- fc 
trict during the past 50 years. 
The New Zealand Government has appointed Mr. A. S. Wil¬ 
kinson custodian of Kapiti Island Bird Sanctuary. 
Mr. C. Barrett has been appointed a member of the R.A.O.U. 
Committee on Reservations and Minimising Danger from Fires 
as representative of Victoria. 
Members of the R.A.O.U. have always been proud of the fact 
that the Emu was the best illustrated journal issued by any 
Ornithologists’ Union in the world. If this superiority is to be 
maintained it can only be through the assistance of those mem¬ 
bers who are photographers. No doubt many of our readers have 
good photographs of birds which have not been published in the 
Emu because they were not required to illustrate articles by the 
photographers. In many cases, however, they would be valuable 
to illustrate articles by other members who happened to be 
writing about the species in question. 
We would appeal to bird-photographers to send us prints of 
any good photographs they may obtain of species on which they 
do not intend to write articles themselves, so that we may build 
up a stock of photos, to be drawn upon as occasion offers to 
illustrate papers in this journal. 
All communications in connection with the Emu, and articles 
or photos, for publication should be addressed to the Editor at 
Sherwood, near Brisbane, not to the official address of the 
Union. _ 
The date of publication was 8th May, 1925. 
