February 17—To-day our close Jseason for game commences, and the focal Pheasants may, with' a little luck, have a short breathing space juntit their young, of the season are reared. But, unfortunately, our City Fathers' little efforts at game pro-{tcction are a mere drop in the ocean Jot ignorance: and in spite of their Jgood intentions our most genial hostess Mrs. X. will produce a roasted bird in March' or April and say with wink, "Oh! Mr. J. I hope you will like our Shantung' chicken!" It is nMeresting to think that despite the absence of written laws, the Chinese have protected certain birds for conlturieg by means of a kind of folklore: et, that the flesh of their lnwuch-beloved Swallow causes siekness if eaten by man. This might be jealled legislation by way of the [stomach; and as it seemed to me that [Moses, the greatest of all law-makers, thad the same idea when he listed the "fowls of abomination," 1 looked up Leviticus XI, v. 13-20, As a result lot my study I was at once convinced that Moses" was out for Pure Food rather than Game Protection, but I found definite signs of the latter If we take it to embrace the protection of birds for their plumage. Moses' Uist covers all the birds of prey, which are foul feeders, and it @ bat got in by accident we must blame the translators who were not ornlthologists! But why should Moses have included the Swan, the Heron and the Lapwing unless' there were some other use for them? Then gain, It seems probable that the Lapwing" which Moses had in mind yas not the Plover, but that other terested bird of gorgeous plumage, the Hoopoe, which was very common In Palestine. It's habits are certainly dirty, but it would make good eating: and 'I can well imagine a stout Palestinian hostess serving out a dish of roasted Hoopoes and saying, with a sly wink, "Now Mr, J. 1 hope you'll enjoy our Egyptian snipe.
Feb, 20—Rain and fog....fog and rain; a new season Is struggling towards its Lirth. And here am 1, tied by the leg, unable to follow those infinitesimal changes which mean everything to a lover of the country: the sudden up-thrust of green weeds; the first dandelions shining like yellow stars in the drab firmament' of the fallow fields. So I am making the best of things, and tether my impatient thoughts to the enquiries of a few friends who have access to my records: they have been looking up their Bibles and want to know what the second bird mentioned by Moses is; the Ossifrage; strange name, yet very easy of explanation when Wwe remember that it. means literally "the bone-breaker." It Is, of course, the bird now known as the Bearded Vulture which has acquired the habit of taking the bones of man or beast up aloft and dropping them on to the rocks below so as to break them and thus get at the. marrow: a grand bird nearly four fect long and with 'a wingspread of 8% feet, it is known fo the Spaniards in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar as Quebrantahuesos, which means precisely the same thing. Thinking things over, T fam sure that Moses was right wher he struck this bird off the Pure Food list, The second entry in my diary seems so fantastic that I~ would hesitate to make it, if it had not been published in England under the almost sacred name of Reuter: here "Alderman G. Graf of Bankstown, NSW. was taking' a nap beneath one of lis' pear trees. Awakened. by Sharp twinge of pain, ho discovered that" a pair of Wagtalls had been Femoving his halts "one: by one. A umber of curls on the right aide of his head had been plucked Tight of He searched and found the Wagtal home. Entwined in their nest. hig missing. halr—as well as" pieces pankstown Counci business papers would appear that the Alderman went nap—w over-trumped—and nally lost his wool, ment of the Decree of September 29, ast, On the subject of intercourse between the heads of departments and the foreign" Ministers residing at the Capital. According to the usual custom, 8 visit of ecomony, after the opening for the Chiness New Year, was proposed the port of the diplomatic body 10 the Prince of Kung and the. Ministers fof the Yamen of Foreign Aftars, andy on Friday February 4. the foreign Fepresentatives, "with their retpoctive Snites, were received in order of seniority intervals of about half an. hour Spart.. This was. also according to Dreecdent in former years: Dut on the resent occasion, in" addition to. the members of the Yamen, the President trident of the Boards, and of the Superintendency ° were and were Introduced tothe rote that all eases of charity and good Aellons that come to. the knowledge of Tapanese editors are Inserted in the columns' of thelt' papers. In the Minato "Shimbun" there is fu Account of the care taken by a wife of a hus Band who fall from a height in 1074 doctor who has been attending the patient cratultously for the past month, iso: Is canonized:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.