Cirrus@Austlit

Banfield admires the 'primitive' skills of Aboriginal bird hunters with grass darts, the making of which he describes. However he decries the killing of wild birds. He describes how mynas imported from Melbourne eradicated locusts on the Hamleigh sugar plantation on the Herbert River, and states that their offspring 'have helped to keep ticks and other insects in check in the neighbourhood of Townsville and Charters Towers'. He recommends the importing of a hundred rock mynas from India for a similar purpose.