the mountains was the
happy-hunting-ground of the natives before the arrival of the
ill-omened white-fellow. The inlets teemed with flathead, mullet,
perch, schnapper, oysters, and sharks, and also with innumerable
water-fowl. The rivers yielded eels and blackfish. The sandy shores
of the islands were honey-combed with the holes in which millions of
mutton-birds deposited their eggs in the last days of November in
each year. Along many tracks in the scrub the black wallabiesand
paddy-melons hopped low. In the open glades among the great
gum-trees marched the stately emu, and tall kangaroos, seven feet
high, stood erect on their monstrous hind-legs, their little
fore-paws hanging in front, and their small faces looking as innocent
as sheep.

Every hollow gum-tree harboured two or more fat opossums, which, when
roasted, made a rich and savoury meal. Parrots of the most brilliant
plumage, like winged flowers, flew in flocks from tree to tree, so
tame that you could kill them with a stick, and so beautiful that it
seemed a sin to destroy them. Black cockatoos, screaming harshly the
while, tore long strips of bark from the messmate, searching for the
savoury grub. Bronzed-winged pigeons, gleaming in the sun, rose from
the scrub, and flocks of white cockatoos, perched high on the bare
limbs of the dead trees, seemed to have made them burst into
miraculous bloom like Aaron's rod.

The great white pelican stood on one leg on a sand-bank, gazing along
its huge beak at the receding tide, hour after hour, solemn and
solitary, meditating on the mysteries of Nature.

But on the mountains both birds and beasts were scarce, as many a
famishing white man has found to his sorrow. In the heat of summer
the sea-breeze grows faint, and dies before it reaches the ranges.
Long ropes of bark, curled with the hot sun, hang motionless from the
black-butts and blue gums; a few birds may be seen sitting on the
limbs of the trees, with their wings extended, their beaks open,
panting for breath, unable to utter a sound from their parched
throats.

"When all food fails then welcome haws" is a saying that does not
apply to Australia, which yields no haws or fruit of any kind that
can long sustain life. A starving man may try to allay the pangs of
hunger with the wild raspberries, or with the cherries which wear
their seeds outside, but the longer he eats them, the more hungry he
grows. One resource of the lost white man, if he has a