. The Australian Museum magazine. Natural history. THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 151 these ridges must have served to check any movement up or down, the wire must have rotated freely in the wound, often catching in obstacles and causing the animal intense pain. How the wire became so firmly fastened around the limb must remain a secret of the animal's painful life story, for the owner tells us that it was wild and un- broken, and only seen about once a month. Perhaps the unfortunate creature became entangled in a length of wire, and, in frantic efforts to break loose, twisted the ends f
. The Australian Museum magazine. Natural history. THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 151 these ridges must have served to check any movement up or down, the wire must have rotated freely in the wound, often catching in obstacles and causing the animal intense pain. How the wire became so firmly fastened around the limb must remain a secret of the animal's painful life story, for the owner tells us that it was wild and un- broken, and only seen about once a month. Perhaps the unfortunate creature became entangled in a length of wire, and, in frantic efforts to break loose, twisted the ends firmly before doing so and thus it carried the incubus to an early equine grave. Another possibility is that the wire loop was lying on the ground and the young horse stepped through it, whereupon it either worked up with the action of walking or the animal, in trying tft rub it off, only succeeded in more firmly establishing the unwelcome leglet. Bird Notes. By J. R. KiNGHORN. THE SACRED KINGFISHER AND ITS YOUNG. About the middle of last December a bird lover at Hunter's Hill wrote to the Museum to the effect that several pairs of kingfishers were nesting in two bird's- nest ferns (a species of staghorn), and stated that last year, when the king- fishers were sitting, a gale, accompanied by torrential rains, flooded the birds out, drowning one «f the parents. He had observed that one pair took it in turns to fly to a staghorn (the brown under part) and peck away at the fibre in an endeavour to make a burrow. The writer visited the locality to exa- mine the nest and site and found that the staghorn was growing on an old sawn-off tree stump about twelve feet from the ground, and on the under side, sheltered by over-hanging leaves, was a hole or burrow (the nest) extending in- wards for six or eight inches, the far end being slightly enlarged, but there were no eggs. The birds were very shy, sitting 30 or 40 yards away high up in the trees, apparently watching very closely to see
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