invisible Mayrah. One of these Mayrah men chummed
with one of the Doolungaiyah tribe; he was a splendid mate, a great
hunter, and all that was desirable, but for his invisibility. The
Doolungaiyah longed to see him, and began to worry him on the subject
until at last the Mayrah became enraged, went to his tribe, and told
them of the curiosity of the other tribes as to their bodily forms. The
others became as furious as he was; they all burst with rage and rushed
away roaring in six different directions, and ever since have only
returned as formless wind to be heard but never seen. So savagely the
Mayrah howled round the Doolungaiyah's camp that he burrowed into the
sand to escape, and his tribe have burrowed ever since.

Three of the winds are masculine and three feminine. The Crow,
according to legend, controls Gheeger Gheeger, and keeps her in a
hollow log. The Eagle-hawk owns Gooroongoodilbaydilbay, and flies with
her in the shape of high clouds. Yarragerh is a man, and he has for
wives the Budtha, Bibbil, and Bumble trees, and when he breathes on
them they burst into new shoots, buds, flowers, and fruits, telling the
world that their lover Yarragerh, the spring, has come.

Douran Doura woos the Coolabah, and Kurrajong, who flower after the hot
north wind has kissed them.

The women winds have no power to make trees fruitful. They can but moan
through them, or tear them in rage for the lovers they have stolen,
whom they can only meet twice a year at the great corroboree of the
winds, when they all come together, heard but never seen; for Mayrah,
the winds, are invisible, as were the Mayrah, the tribe who in bursting
gave them birth.

Yarragerh and Douran Doura are the most honoured winds as being the
surest rain-bringers. In some of the blacks' songs Mayrah is sung of as
the mother of Yarragerh, the spring, or as a woman kissed into life by
Yarragerh putting such warmth into her that she blows the winter away.
But these are poetical licences, for Yarragerh is ordinarily a man who
woos the trees as a spring wind until the flowers are born and the
fruit formed, then back he goes to the heaven whence he came.

Then there are the historical landmarks: Byamee's tracks in stone, and
so on, and the battle-fields, too, of old tribal fights. Just in front
of our station store was a gnarled old Coolabah tree covered with warty
excrescences, which are supposed to be seats for spirits, so showing a
spirit haunt.

In this