Were not the beasts of the field, the
birds of the air, the very fish of the sea, given over to his arbitrary
authority? Here the interest in birds is mainly protective. The printed
law of the land says in ponderous paragraphs all duly numbered and
subdivided, that it is unlawful to kill many Queensland birds; and the
pains and penalties for disregard thereof, are they not set out in
terrifying array? But who cares? Take, for an example, the lovely
Gouldian finch. The law makes it an offence to kill the birds, or to take
their eggs, or to have them in possession dead or alive. Yet trappers go
out into the habitation of the bird and snare them by the thousand. Fifty
thousand pairs have been sent away in a single season. Not one tenth of
those which twitter so faintly and yet so sweetly to their tiny loves of
their own land and their erstwhile freedom, ever live to be gloated over,
because of their fatal gift of beauty, in London or on the Continent.
A CENSUS
While this census ignores several birds of the island as to the identity
of which doubt exists in the mind of the compiler, it acknowledges the
presence of all permanent residents familiar to him, as well as casual
visitors, and those which stay for a few hours or days, as the case may
be, for rest or refreshment during migratory flights.
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