=6* King Quail= (Chestnut-bellied, Least, Dwarf), reads "No. 6 (see colored illustration) is the King Quail, called also the Chestnut-bellied Quail, Least Quail, and Dwarf Quail. Four of this genus are known in the world, of which one is found in Australia." (e) denotes that a name is used in error. * * * * * A Yellow-tailed Tit-Warbler is about 4 in. long; a White-eye, 4.5 in.; a Sparrow, 5 in.; a House-Swallow, 6.5 in.; a Sordid Wood-Swallow, 7 in.; a Black and White Fantail, 7.5 in.; a Starling, 8.5 in.; a Harmonious Shrike-Thrush, 9.5 in.; a Noisy Miner, 10 in.; a Magpie-Lark, 10.5 in.; a Butcher-Bird, 11 in.; a Pallid Cuckoo, 12in.; a Rosella, 12.5 in.; a Galah, 14 in.; a Wattle-Bird, 14.5 in.; a Laughing Kingfisher, 17.5 in.; a White-backed Magpie, 18 in.; and a Crow, 20 in. (measured from the tip of tail to the tip of bill). Don't try to judge a bird's length in inches. Note one or two prominent markings, and the size of a bird; say, larger than a Starling, but smaller than a Magpie-Lark. Then get the length of these birds from the table above (8-1/2 in. and 10-1/2 in. respectively), and compare the description of each bird that comes between these lengths with the illustrations and the bird before you. The birds are approximately relative size on each block. Use the index to find the page of a bird, then use the number, if asterisked, to find the bird in the colored plate index. [Illustration: THE WORLD Showing REGIONS] =An Australian Bird Book.= * * * * * A LECTURE. Australia is the wonderland of the scientist and of the Nature-lover. It is a great living "museum," stocked with marvels of many kinds, including so-called "living fossils," the sole survivors of otherwise extinct groups of animals. Competent authorities have proposed to divide the world, biologically, into two parts--Australia and the rest of the world, and they have considered Australia the more important part. This division was based mainly on the study of mammals--animals which suckle their young--for Australia is the home of the two surviving members of the lowest group of mammals--Monotremata, the egg-laying Platypus (_Ornithorhynchus_), and the Spiny Ant-eater (_Echidna_). Further, marsupials, except for two kinds found in America, are confined to this long-isolated southern land. Here, shut off from the severe competition experienced by the animals of northern lands, marsupials were modified so that they were adapted for life in almost every realm utilized by the higher mammals of other countries. Thus there are herbivorous, carnivorous, and insectivorous marsupials. Owing, probably, to the advent of Bats--true flying mammals--at, possibly, a comparatively early time, the marsupial was beaten in the air, and so a true flying form was not evolved, though the so-called "Flying Phalanger" is some distance on the way.