AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLI, Issue 9432, 1 February 1921, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

CAPTURES IN INTERIOR. By the Mataram there arrived m Sydney recently a total of 18,000 Australian passengers from the Northern Territory. They came m cages — they were birds from the Territory, finches .and parrots. And judging by their alertness and the state ol thoir plumage they had enjoyed the voyage.; Every year the bird-catchers penetrate far into the Territory, where there are finches of every variety by the million. The painted finches are delightful little tilings, with the brilliant colours put on them as by an artist'B hand. They twitter, but are not song birds. It is their quaint and gorgeous costumes that make them such favourites for the home cage. The bird-catchers depend on the dry weather, for the bait is chiefly water. The birds are caught m a net. This is m two sections, with tho. inner edge pegged to the ground, and m the space between " are placed tins of water ar.u some seeds. In the early morning or late evening the bird-catcher is concealed under bushes, with his hand on a rope. As soon as the thirsty birds fly down — as they do m clouds — on the space between the nets, a tug of the ropes pulls the nets over and closes them above the birds. Sometimes as many as 70 dozen finches are got m one haul. The net, when closed, is 15ft by 10ft. And on a good day 100 dozen can be caught. It means travelling far into the interior, for within 100 miles of Darwin there is usually enough water for the birds, and as soon as rain comes the bird-catcher has to pack up and come back to civilisation. The great number of birds brought down to Sydney by the Mataram, according to the catches, make little difference m the millions of birds m the Territory. < " It's like trying to bail out the sea with a bucket," they say. And there are vast areas m the interior where the birds will never be interfered with, since these stretches are composed of rocky country, where a man could not gret a horse to <*o. For 800 miles inland they, swarm, and from Queensland , right across to the north-west coastline. " The hawks do more harm than the catchers," they say; and they assert thnt the greoV parrots are a pest, as they destroy the settlers' crops. When the flrrass is burnt off many ... of • .these birds are destroyed.