An Australian Bird Book Part 2

1 4

=6* King Quail= (Chestnut-bellied, Least, Dwarf), reads "No. 6 (see colored ill.u.s.tration) is the King Quail, called also the Chestnut-bellied Quail, Least Quail, and Dwarf Quail. Four of this genus are known in the world, of which one is found in Australia."

(e) denotes that a name is used in error.

A Yellow-tailed t.i.t-Warbler is about 4 in. long; a White-eye, 4.5 in.; a Sparrow, 5 in.; a House-Swallow, 6.5 in.; a Sordid Wood-Swallow, 7 in.; a Black and White Fantail, 7.5 in.; a Starling, 8.5 in.; a Harmonious Shrike-Thrush, 9.5 in.; a Noisy Miner, 10 in.; a Magpie-Lark, 10.5 in.; a Butcher-Bird, 11 in.; a Pallid Cuckoo, 12in.; a Rosella, 12.5 in.; a Galah, 14 in.; a Wattle-Bird, 14.5 in.; a Laughing Kingfisher, 17.5 in.; a White-backed Magpie, 18 in.; and a Crow, 20 in. (measured from the tip of tail to the tip of bill).

Don't try to judge a bird's length in inches.

Note one or two prominent markings, and the size of a bird; say, larger than a Starling, but smaller than a Magpie-Lark. Then get the length of these birds from the table above (8-1/2 in. and 10-1/2 in.

respectively), and compare the description of each bird that comes between these lengths with the ill.u.s.trations and the bird before you.

The birds are approximately relative size on each block.

Use the index to find the page of a bird, then use the number, if asterisked, to find the bird in the colored plate index.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WORLD Showing REGIONS]

=An Australian Bird Book.=

A LECTURE.

Australia is the wonderland of the scientist and of the Nature-lover.

It is a great living "museum," stocked with marvels of many kinds, including so-called "living fossils," the sole survivors of otherwise extinct groups of animals.

Competent authorities have proposed to divide the world, biologically, into two parts--Australia and the rest of the world, and they have considered Australia the more important part.

This division was based mainly on the study of mammals--animals which suckle their young--for Australia is the home of the two surviving members of the lowest group of mammals--Monotremata, the egg-laying Platypus (_Ornithorhynchus_), and the Spiny Ant-eater (_Echidna_).

Further, marsupials, except for two kinds found in America, are confined to this long-isolated southern land.

Here, shut off from the severe compet.i.tion experienced by the animals of northern lands, marsupials were modified so that they were adapted for life in almost every realm utilized by the higher mammals of other countries. Thus there are herbivorous, carnivorous, and insectivorous marsupials. Owing, probably, to the advent of Bats--true flying mammals--at, possibly, a comparatively early time, the marsupial was beaten in the air, and so a true flying form was not evolved, though the so-called "Flying Phalanger" is some distance on the way.

As regards the other group of flying animals--birds--Australia is even of greater interest, for here are found unique archaic forms of life, such as the Emu, Ca.s.sowary, Mound-Builders, and Lyre-Birds, and "every widely-spread family of birds but two is represented; the only widely-spread families of birds totally absent from Australia are Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs and Vultures." Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, however, have crossed Wallace's line into Celebes and adjacent islands, and may yet reach Australia naturally.

Further, many well-known birds, such as Pigeons, Parrots, and Kingfishers, reach their highest development in the Australian region, and, more important still, the whole bird world seems to reach its culminating point in this wonderland. It is a factor adding to the interest of Australia's fauna that three of the four families placed at the head of the bird world in the natural system of cla.s.sification adopted by ornithologists, and used by Dr. Sharpe in his just recently completed _Hand-List of Birds_, should be absolutely confined to the Australian Continent and adjacent islands. Thus Australia can justly claim to be the most highly developed of regions, so far as birds are concerned, for Bower-Birds, Birds of Paradise, and Bell-Magpies (_Streperas_) are peculiar, while the penultimate family--the Crow family--is shared with the other regions of the world.

Thus, with regard to birds, the term "fossil continent" applied to Australia is not appropriate, as it is but partly true.

Since the birds native to Australia are so interesting in themselves, and are so varied in kind, Australians should know, love, and jealously protect these beautiful creatures. Strict regulations should be framed to prevent the exploitation of Nature's gifts by those who destroy useful or precious and rare birds for the sake of gain. Even collectors, who, under the guise of scientific work, collect eggs, and kill birds to trade in their skins, should be supervized.

Let us now consider the different groups of birds. Living birds were formerly divided into two sub-cla.s.ses--(1) _Rat.i.tae_ (Lat., _ratis_, a raft), and (2) _Carinatae_ (Lat., _carina_, a keel). The first is the small group of flightless, running birds, made up of five living birds, all inhabiting southern lands. These are the Emu and Ca.s.sowary of Australia, the Ostrich of South Africa, the Rhea or South American Ostrich, and the Kiwi or Apteryx of New Zealand. Taken together with other evidence, all pointing in the same way, these birds have led scientists to think of a great southern land ma.s.s connecting the southern lands, for the Emu did not fly here, nor did the Rhea fly to South America, but they must have reached their present home by a land-bridge not necessarily complete at any one time. As these birds do not fly, they have no big wing-muscles, and so do not need the ridge of bone down the breast. Thus they belong to the sub-cla.s.s, the members of which have a raft-like breast bone. The other living birds were placed in the sub-cla.s.s the members of which have a keel on the breast bone for the attachment of the wing-muscles.

Recently, however, Pycraft, a leading ornithologist, has proposed to base the division into sub-cla.s.ses on the characters of the bones of the palate instead of those of the breast-bone. Thus, he places the sixth family of birds--the Tinamous, of South America--with the rat.i.te birds, to form his primitive group--_Palaeognathae_ ("old jaw"), while the members of the old sub-cla.s.s _Carinatae_, minus the Tinamous, const.i.tute his second division, the _Neognathae_ ("new jaw").

Mr. Gregory Mathews, the first part of whose projected great work on Australian Birds has just come to hand, has followed Dr. Bowdler Sharpe in accepting this cla.s.sification, so we must follow too, as Mathews' work will probably be our standard for years to come. The large number of Australian birds belonging to this second sub-cla.s.s is now divided into 20 orders, which with the Emu order, make a total of 21 orders of birds represented in Australia.

Now, let us consider the birds in each order. The best-known member of the first Australian order is the Emu, a bird well known to all, though, unfortunately, becoming very rare, so that few persons in the settled districts now enjoy the privilege of seeing an Emu in a wild state.

[Page 12]

[Ill.u.s.tration: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]]

CLa.s.s.--AVES.--BIRDS.

Sub-Cla.s.s I.--Palaeognathae.

Rat.i.tae and Tinamidae.

F. 1. _Rheidae_, Rhea, 3 sp. Nl.

F. 2. _Struthionidae_, Ostrich, 4 sp.--4(3)E., 1(0)P. (S.

Palestine).

ORDER I.--CASUARIIFORMES.

F. 3. DROMAEIDAE (1), EMU, 1 sp. A.

1 1

=1 Emu=, _Dromaius novae-hollandiae_, A.

Stat. r. plains 78

See diagram, second largest living bird; f., smaller. Fruits, gra.s.s.

F. 4. CASUARIIDAE (1), Ca.s.sOWARY, 17 sp. A.

F. 5. _Apterygidae_, Apteryx, Kiwi, 6 sp. A. (N.Z.).

F. 6. _Tinamidae_, Tinamous, 69 sp. Nl.

Sub-Cla.s.s II.--Neognathae.

Carinatae, minus Tinamidae.

The birds of the second order are well known as "scratchers." They include the domestic fowl, which has been derived from the wild jungle fowl of India, and other fowl, such as the peafowl. Quail are also included here; so are Pheasants. The absence of Pheasants from Australia is more than compensated for by the presence of the Mound-Builders. These marvellous birds, Brush Turkeys and Mallee-Fowl, retain the reptilian characteristic of not sitting on their eggs. Thus the young have never known their parents. The eggs are laid in a huge mound of sand and earth, which contains rotting vegetation. The heat of decomposition in this remarkable natural incubator, is quite sufficient to hatch the eggs. The young are born fully feathered, able to run at once, and able to fly the day they leave the mound. Contrast their stage of development with that of a pigeon born naked, blind, and helpless, and that of a chick born clothed with down and able to run about. There is an interesting connexion between the size of an egg and the state of development of the young bird at birth. The pigeon lays a relatively small egg, so the young pigeon does not develop far in the egg, and requires much maternal care. The hen's egg is larger, and the chick is more fully developed. The Mallee-Hen's egg is enormous, and so the young can develop much further before birth.

This bird, unfortunately, is doomed to early extinction, for the fox has discovered the rich store of food in the eggs, and country dwellers have also discovered that they are delicate in flavor, and are good food. It is hoped that the scrubby western end of Kangaroo Island, where foxes are unknown, will prove a suitable sanctuary for them. These birds, which rank among Nature's wonders, are almost confined to the Australian region. One is found in Borneo and the Philippines, while a second is confined to the distant Nicobar Islands. Twenty-six live in Australia and its neighboring islands. One of these has spread across Wallace's line to the small Kangean Island, near Java. The Stubble Quail, a member of the Pheasant family, is nearly identical with the British Quail. Mathews and Campbell make the King Quail a sub-species of the Chinese Quail.