of Tasmania is very partial, differing in
this respect remarkably from that of the animals. The supply of the
peculiar food suitable to particular genera and species necessarily
affects their range, and as one half of the island is still covered by
the dense primaeval forests, so in that portion few of the birds
inhabiting the settled districts are to be found. Several of them follow
the footsteps of man, and as his clearings take place in the remote
wilds, and corn-fields spring into existence, so many grain-eating birds
make their appearance. This is entirely irrespective of the regular
annual migrations of numerous species from New Holland to Tasmania,
which, in this respect, follow the same law which governs the migrations
of species inhabiting similar latitudes in the other hemisphere. The
snipe and swallows usually arrive in Van Diemen's Land during the first
week in September; and during that month most of those birds which
migrate for the purpose of breeding also make their appearance. In
April, or soon after, the various summer visitants take their departure
northwards. Mr. Gould observes:--"There are also periods when some
species of birds appear entirely to forsake the part of the country in
which they have been accustomed to dwell, and to betake themselves to
some distant locality, where they remain for five or ten years, or even
for a longer period, and whence they as suddenly disappear as they had
arrived."

The only birds shot as game in the colony are quail and snipe. Quail
shooting commences on 1st April, and snipe shooting about 1st September.

SECTION III.--FISHES.

Sir John Richardson has described many species of Tasmanian fish in the
_Transactions of the Zoological Society_, and, more recently, some
additional species in the _Zoology of H. M. S. Erebus and Terror_. To
these works we must refer for scientific details, but many are still
undescribed, and of the habits of our fish in general but little is
known. Every season new species are brought to market at Hobart Town and
Launceston, and no doubt many more species yet remain to reward the
zealous fisherman who will explore the various banks off our coasts. The
depth of water throughout the whole of Bass' Strait, and between the
numerous islands which dot its eastern and western extremities, ranges
between twenty and fifty fathoms only, the latter being the greatest
depth. In such localities, and more especially amongst the islands,
where nu