each of a crow by taking out a gun, lying down under a
tree, and pretending to be dead. True enough, the crow came up and
hopped around, as if waiting for the man to move, and so to see if he
were really dead. After awhile, the crow, to make quite sure, perched
on a branch above the man's head and dropped a piece of twig on to his
face! It was at this stage that the man decided to be alive, and, taking
up his gun, shot the crow.

There may be some exaggeration in the bushmen's tales of the crow's
cunning, but there is quite enough of ascertained fact to show that the
bird is as devilish in its ingenuity as in its cruelty. In most parts of
Australia there is a reward paid for every dead crow brought into the
police offices. Still, in spite of constant warfare, the bird holds its
own, and very rarely indeed is its nest discovered--a signal proof of
its precautions against the enmity of man.

To turn to a more pleasant type of feathered animal. On the whole, the
most distinctly Australian bird is the kookaburra, or "laughing
jackass." (A picture of two kookaburras faces page 1 of this volume.
They were drawn for me by a very clever Australian black-and-white
artist, Mr. Norman Lindsay.) The kookaburra is about the size of an owl,
of a mottled grey colour. Its sly, mocking eye prepares you for its
note, which is like a laugh, partly sardonic, partly rollicking. The
kookaburra seems to find much grim fun in this world, and is always
disturbing the Bush quiet with its curious "laughter." So near in sound
to a harsh human laugh is the kookaburra's call that there is no
difficulty in persuading new chums that the bird is deliberately mocking
them. The kookaburra has the reputation of killing snakes; it certainly
is destructive to small vermin, so its life is held sacred in the Bush.
And very well our kookaburra knows the fact. As he sits on a fence and
watches you go past with a gun, he will now and again break out into his
discordant "laugh" right in your face.

The Australian magpie, a black-and-white bird of the crow family, is
also "protected," as it feeds mainly on grubs and insects, which are
nuisances to the farmer. The magpie has a very clear, well-sustained
note, and to hear a group of them singing together in the early morning
suggests a fine choir of boys' voices. They will tell you in Australia
that the young magpie is taught by its parents to "sing in tune" in
these bird choirs, and is knocked off the fence at ch