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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77055 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                             THE WILDERNESS
+
+                                   BY
+
+                            AMY ELEANOR MACK
+
+                        (Mrs. LAUNCELOT HARRISON)
+
+                 AUTHOR OF “A BUSH CALENDAR,” “BUSHLAND
+                    STORIES,” “SCRIBBLING SUE,” ETC.
+
+                     _Illustrated by John D. Moore_
+
+                               AUSTRALIA:
+                         ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD.
+                      89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY
+
+
+
+
+                 _“The Wilderness” first appeared in the
+                         Sydney Morning Herald_
+
+                Wholly set up and printed in Australia by
+           W. C. Penfold & Co., Ltd., 88 Pitt Street, Sydney.
+
+          Registered by the Postmaster-General for transmission
+                       through the post as a book.
+                                  1922
+
+
+
+
+                                   TO
+                                  SUSIE
+
+                       WHO LOVES ALL LIVING THINGS
+
+
+
+
+          [Illustration: “_A soft mauve mist_”--_White Cedar_]
+
+
+
+
+                            _THE WILDERNESS_
+
+
+Once, long ago, part of it was garden, and the clearing between the
+redgums and ironbarks was planted with fruit trees and roses; but the
+gardener went the way of all flesh, and those who came after him did
+not have the same love for the garden. Now the bush has reclaimed its
+own, and roses and fruit trees are half hidden by the tangle of wild
+things which have gradually crept over them. Each spring the fruit
+blossoms still shine out on the unpruned trees--all the lovelier for
+their disorder--and mingle with the gold of the wattles; myriads
+of undisturbed bulbs--ixias, freesias and sparaxis--send up their
+blooms among the long swordgrass, outrivalling the blooms in my own
+well-worked garden beds.
+
+Lovely as the bush-girt garden must have been in its orderly days,
+it now holds joys undreamed of then. With the creeping return of the
+wattles and tecoma, the mistletoe and hardenbergia, have come back
+many of the shy living creatures which had been driven away by the
+gardening; and now that there is no more digging and planting to
+disturb them they live as happily as if they were a hundred miles away
+from men and houses, instead of in the midst of a popular suburb.
+
+Fortunately the wilderness is not a desirable building allotment. The
+little creek which bisects it makes the site too damp for a house,
+and so no ruthless builder casts a speculative eye upon it. But the
+creek is an attraction for numberless creatures--birds, butterflies,
+bandicoots, frogs, and myriads of those tiny living things which we
+carelessly group together as “wogs.”
+
+To the entomologist the wilderness would be a perfect paradise, for it
+is the breeding place of many things--not all loved by the ordinary
+mortal. Many species of ants have their homes down there; and paper
+wasps love to make their wonderful many-celled nests on the old fruit
+trees. Cicads crawl out of the soil each spring and creep up the gum
+trunks to shed their husks before they wing out to fill the wilderness
+with their humming song.
+
+[Illustration: _The Paper Wasp’s many-celled nest_]
+
+Trapdoor spiders lurk down near the creek, and many of the web-making
+ones spin their light gossamer from branch to branch. Antlions
+have their little pits to trap the unwary, and dragonflies flitter
+restlessly over the water.
+
+[Illustration: _The Dragonfly_]
+
+Most interesting of all to the non-entomological mind are the
+butterflies. Down in that tangle of trees, grass and ferns are to be
+found the larvæ and pupæ of many butterflies which in time develop
+into living jewels. On dull days, and in late afternoons, the funny
+little caterpillars of the small blue butterflies march out in a solemn
+procession to feed on the thick fleshy leaves of the mistletoe which
+grows so lavishly throughout the wilderness. Later they wander down
+from the mistletoe clumps and enter the nests of the stodgy brown
+sugar-ants to pupate. It is strange to think that these gay, blue
+creatures rise from among such queer bed-fellows to flutter round my
+garden flowers. For in time all the full-fledged butterflies leave
+the denseness of the wilderness to hover over my beds of zinnias and
+larkspurs, outshining the brightest blossoms. Most gorgeous, I think,
+are the vivid turquoise blue and black ones called Papilio, which
+attract me by their name as much as by their beauty. Very lovely, also,
+are the big brown butterflies with the eyes on their wings, while
+there is a distinct fascination about the little “skippers” which vary
+in shade from cream to brown, and which are known by their different
+flight.
+
+[Illustration: _The vivid turquoise blue and black Papilio_]
+
+The man who made the wilderness garden must have had a true Australian
+love, for even in the cultivated beds he planted native things. Along
+the upper fence he put a row of silver wattles; most of them are long
+since dead, and their bare branches serve as supports for the wandering
+tecoma and the red-berried solanum. But their children are scattered
+throughout the wilderness, making a silver-grey mist, which in spring
+gives way to a golden blaze. They are in every stage of growth, and as
+the older trees die off there are always new ones coming to perfection.
+
+Pittosporums, too, he planted, which fill the mild spring evenings
+with their heavy sweetness; and many Christmas-bushes. These enjoy the
+wealth of food which comes from all the leaf-mould and decay, and at
+Christmas time each year their rosy branches glow like beacons through
+the green glade.
+
+[Illustration: _The formal cypress shape of the Native Cherry_]
+
+Close by the creek grows one of the loveliest of the wild trees, the
+native cherry (_Exocarpus cupressiformis_). There is quite an old-world
+charm in its formal cypress shape, which seems to reprove the irregular
+gums and she-oaks; and the gold-green of its tender tips stands out in
+lovely contrast against the blue-green and silver-grey of the other
+trees. When the setting sun catches it through the taller tree trunks
+it glows like a fairy Christmas tree, and one can picture the little
+folk dancing round it in a ring. It grows at the very edge of the once
+cultivated plot, and I think the planner of that garden must have
+stopped short just there in order to save the lovely thing. Beyond all
+this is natural bush, with tall spotted pink orchids pushing through in
+the spring-time, under the golden pultenea and dillwynia, and in summer
+a white cloud of snowbush.
+
+There is a peculiar fascination in the mixing of wild and tame in that
+wilderness. The white shasta daisies growing higher than my head in
+their effort to see the sun through the too protective red-shooted
+gums; the orange-flowered mistletoe drooping from the tall ironbark to
+touch the appletree below, seem to me symbolical of that mixing which
+should come so naturally between things--and people--of this land and
+of the old.
+
+[Illustration: _The orange-flowered Mistletoe_]
+
+Of all the trees in the wilderness there is none which so completely
+satisfies me as the white cedar (_Melia composita_). It grows on the
+upper edge, close to my verandah, and I know it through every varying
+phase. I never can decide in which season I love it most. It is one of
+our few deciduous trees, and after its pale golden leaves have dropped
+it is bare for a short space. Then a soft mauve mist breaks over it,
+and it is covered with a myriad lilac-coloured, lilac-scented blossoms,
+which pour their perfume lavishly into the world. I think it is a much
+lovelier tree than the lilac, for, while its colour is not so deep,
+the flowers grow in much lighter, more feathery fashion, and the whole
+effect is that of a mass of misty lace. While the blossoms are at their
+sweetest the little green leaf-tips have been bursting through. They
+grow swiftly from slender fingers to waving tassels, and then to open
+fans, and by the time the flowers are finished the tree is dressed in
+a beautiful fern-like foliage of glossy green. Nor do its charms end
+here. The flowers have left behind them hundreds of small green fruits,
+which grow and ripen, and by the time the autumn comes again and the
+leaves begin to fall they are ready to provide a beautiful feast for
+the birds. And so comes the white cedar’s crowning charm.
+
+A tree without birds in its branches is like a room without books on
+its shelves--the birds are the crowning charm. The poet knew that when
+he wrote ecstatically of--
+
+    A tree that may in summer wear
+    A nest of robins in her hair.
+
+My white cedar does not wear any nest in her hair, but each autumn her
+charm is enhanced by the beautiful green oriole in her branches.
+
+In autumn the fat green berries have grown golden and juicy, and the
+oriole comes to feast upon them. He really has no right to be so near
+Sydney nowadays, for he is one of the larger birds, which have been
+driven back by the advance of the city; but somehow or other, in the
+mysterious bird way, he learned of my white cedar, and each year
+he comes to spend a month or so in the wilderness, feasting on the
+berries, and in between meals filling the autumn day with his lovely,
+clear ringing song. He is one of the lucky birds, whose voice matches
+his form in beauty. For he is, indeed, a beautiful bird, with his olive
+green back, creamy breast streaked with black, and bright red eye and
+bill. He is big enough, too, to show up in the landscape, and towards
+the end of his stay, when the cedar is nearly leafless, he makes a
+lovely note of colour on the bare branches against the blue sky.
+
+[Illustration: _The beautiful green Oriole_]
+
+But he has rivals in the wilderness--many rivals, both in voice and
+appearance. I am not sure that the blue jays are not more lovely to
+look at. Their silvery bodies and black faces are not so gay, of
+course, but they are slim and slender, and they float through the
+tree-tops with wonderful grace. They come in flocks to the wilderness
+during the winter, and it is a joy to watch them swaying in the
+tree-tops, then darting suddenly down to catch an insect on the wing,
+and up again to their swinging perch. Pity ’tis their voice has no
+beauty, but is just a querulous squawking note.
+
+Handsome creatures, too, are the dollar-birds which visit the
+wilderness every year and drift amongst the tall tree-tops, displaying
+the silvery dollars on their wings against a blue-and-brown background.
+But their voices!--a small boy compared them to a lot of mad frogs,
+and the description is not inapt. Fortunately for our ears these
+harsh-voiced birds are short-stayed visitors, but many of the birds
+that linger in the wilderness are true singers.
+
+As I write the air is filled with the glorious song of the
+butcher-birds, which stay with us all through the late summer and
+autumn and sometimes come in the spring. I have heard all the old-world
+songbirds--the nightingale and the lark, the blackbird and the
+thrush--heard and loved them all. But for sheer beauty and volume I
+know no bird whose voice compares with the butcher-bird’s, and I think
+it is a sin that he should be so named.
+
+It is not his habit of making an occasional meal from a small bird
+that has given the butcher-bird his name, for many birds have the
+same habit. It is his peculiar custom of storing his food that has
+gained him the reputation of keeping a “butcher’s shop.” Most birds
+kill an insect as they need it and either eat it or carry it off to
+their nestlings. The butcher-bird thriftily makes a small collection
+of insects and lays them in a row. I have seen him lay a huge brown
+grasshopper and a slim praying mantis side by side on my garden rail,
+and then fly off and hang another grasshopper in a slender fork of a
+wattle.
+
+Gould, in his famous work, pictures the butcher-bird with a blue wren
+hanging from a fork in the tree beside him, a picture which naturally
+ruined the bird’s reputation. I am happy to say I have never seen that
+horrid tragedy, and from personal observation I think that insects are
+a much more usual part of his diet than are little birds. At any rate,
+with such a beautiful voice he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I
+hope it is not characteristic of us that in naming him we should have
+overlooked his rare beauty and pounced on his little weakness, though I
+cannot help thinking that in more aesthetic lands he would have had a
+name more suited to his beautiful song.
+
+[Illustration: _Our best autumn singer--the Butcher-bird_]
+
+The butcher-bird--since I must call him so--is our best autumn singer,
+but in the spring his place is taken by the grey thrush. He is next, I
+think, on the list of our songbirds, and his sweet ringing call holds
+all the freshness and joy of spring. He is such a darling bird to
+have about the place. He perches on the redgum or the wattles, which
+stand in line with the white cedar, and he looks down at me with his
+big round eye in the friendliest fashion. So graceful he is, too, and
+so elegant in his neat grey coat, that I always place him in my mind
+amongst the beautiful birds, though some might call him plain.
+
+Whilst you might dispute the grey thrush’s claim to beauty, no one
+can deny that of two other of my songbirds, the two thickheads, or
+thunderbirds, as they are sometimes called, because they burst into
+song after a clap of thunder or any sudden noise. The yellow-breasted
+one is very gorgeous, with his white throat and black face; but the
+rufous-breasted one is handsome, too. Sometimes he breaks into a
+whip-like note, which has earned him the name of “ring-coachie” amongst
+small boys. Once, on a rare occasion, the coachwhip bird himself sent
+his call up from the little creek. As every one knows, the coachwhip
+bird is a shy, furtive creature, rarely seen by anyone but real bird
+observers, though his voice is common enough in the gullies. We
+are nearly a mile away from the gully where he lives, and he must
+have crept up through the intervening gardens to have a look at the
+wilderness. Just once he came, but though I have looked and listened I
+have had no sign or sound of him since.
+
+A very familiar birdcall in the wilderness is that of the cuckoo--or I
+should say “calls of the cuckoos,” for there are five different sorts,
+with five different calls, amongst our regular visitors. Of course,
+none of them says “cuckoo.” Once I used to cherish a secret feeling
+of resentment that we should have so many true cuckoos in Australia
+without one possessing the call associated with the name. But after
+four English Mays, in which the cuckoo calls all day, I thanked fate
+that I lived in a land where the cuckoo did not say “cuckoo” from dawn
+till long after dark. For a more monotonous birdcall I have never
+known. Our big scrub-cuckoo, the Koel, is nearest to it in monotony;
+but the five that visit the wilderness have quite different songs.
+True, the fantail and the two little bronze cuckoos have merely
+plaintive Whistles, but the big pallid cuckoo has a fine ringing
+song right up the scale, and the square-tailed calls over and over a
+distinct phrase, in a higher key each time.
+
+[Illustration: _A simple creature_]
+
+The shrike-tit, that gorgeous yellow-and-black fellow with the black
+crest, is one of the loveliest birds amongst our regular visitors,
+and one of my favourites, for he has such an unsuspicious nature. His
+long drawn out, rather plaintive note is very easy to imitate, and we
+can always bring him down to us by repeating the call. Again and again
+I have seen the simple creature hurrying through the wilderness in
+response to a human whistle, and flying wonderingly from tree to tree
+in search of his calling rival. Sometimes he comes within a few feet of
+us, dancing with rage and chattering angrily at the hidden intruder,
+before he discovers the fraud and flies off in disgust.
+
+[Illustration: _The attractive Lalage_]
+
+A visitor which has a particular attraction for me is the Lalage. I
+like his smart coat of black and white and grey, and I like his sweet
+trilling song, but what I like most is his name--his scientific name.
+For he is one of the few birds whose scientific name is preferable to
+the vernacular or the colloquial; _Lalage tricolor_ is far prettier and
+easier to say than “White-shouldered caterpillar-eater,” or the stupid
+“peewee lark.” Other birds that visit us occasionally are parrots.
+I have noticed five kinds--Rosellas, Mountain Lowrie, Blue Mountain
+parrots, and two little green lorikeets. They have always come when the
+eucalypts are in flower, and I love to see their gay bodies flashing
+against the creamy blossoms as they feed noisily on the honey. If only
+people would realize how much life and colour they bring to their
+gardens by retaining food-giving trees, I am sure they would not be so
+ruthless about cutting down trees to make way for roses and dahlias.
+No bed of flowers could be so soul-satisfying as the sight of a flock
+of parrakeets feeding in the honey-laden blossoms of a flower-covered
+bloodwood.
+
+Just as gay as the parrots, though very, very much smaller, is the
+red-headed honey-eater, or bloodbird, as he is more familiarly known.
+He is also a honey lover, and visits us when the trees are in blossom.
+His bright red-and-black coat makes a vivid spot of colour, and his
+pretty little song adds to the general harmony.
+
+The profusion of mistletoe in the wilderness brings us the
+mistletoe-bird. Few people really know this tiny steel-blue
+crimson-breasted fellow, or his plain grey little wife. Yet his single
+whistle, like that of a small boy who has just learned to whistle
+through his teeth, is one of the commonest sounds in the bush, and the
+mated birds call continuously when feeding in different clumps, as if
+they feared to lose touch with one another. One of the great charms
+of a wattle, which till lately stood beside my verandah, was that its
+leafy tops were beloved by the mistletoe-bird. When he had taken his
+fill of the luscious and viscid berries which dropped from the redgum
+by the gate, he would retire to the wattle, hide himself amongst the
+grey-green foliage, and pour out an ecstasy of song in the tiniest of
+voices. Many birds, even to so bold a fellow as the butcher-bird, have
+this habit of hiding amongst the thickest leaves and soliloquizing, but
+none has a more impassioned utterance than the little mistletoe-bird,
+though none has so slender a song.
+
+Sometimes we find their nest, one of the most wonderfully built of all
+birds’ nests. It is woven from fine plant fibres and silky seeds, and
+is hung from a slender twig, with a little entrance at the side; it is
+very like a little purse of felt, save that it is not so harsh to the
+touch as felt.
+
+[Illustration: _Spine-billed Honeyeater_]
+
+One more of our visitors I must mention, and that is the native canary,
+which comes each year, builds his little domed nest in a sapling, and
+fills the air with his sweet song. Then there are the everyday birds,
+the dear, familiar things which are with us all the year round. Every
+gardener knows them--blue wrens and tits, jacky winters and yellow
+robins, redheads and spinebills, peewees and kookaburras--they are the
+usual inhabitants of our suburban gardens, and dear to us all because
+of their friendly, fearless ways. Other birds come and go, but they
+stay with us all the time, building and breeding in the wilderness
+each spring. In the two years that I have known this wild patch I have
+counted seventy-two species of birds passing through. Some, as I have
+said, are there all the time; some come at certain seasons, sing for a
+space amongst the tree-tops, feed for a week or so on the berries and
+blossoms, then pass on to other feeding grounds, while others stay just
+for an hour, glad of a safe and sheltered resting-place on their long,
+mysterious journeys to and fro across the land.
+
+[Illustration: _So tame and friendly--Blue Wrens_]
+
+Fascinating as the wilderness is by day, it is at night that one feels
+its deepest spell. Then all the strange elusive creatures come out
+from their hiding places, and go about their business in the tree-tops
+or down under the thick shrubs. One needs keen hearing to know the
+wilderness by night, for eyes alone are not much good.
+
+I can never make up my mind which I love most--the birds that live all
+the year round in the wilderness, and are so tame and friendly that
+they come right up on to my verandah and sit and sing within a yard of
+my chair, or the visitors which bring the feeling of distant places
+with them, and carry my thoughts far, far away. But of one thing I am
+sure, and that is my gratitude to the man who left this little wild
+patch in the heart of the houses to be a sanctuary for all wild things.
+Noisy people passing by may think it is a mere empty patch of trees;
+but we who have sat silently on our verandah through the long still
+summer evenings and listened to the whisperings and stirrings, know
+that there is a distinct world of living things waking and moving down
+there in the shadows.
+
+[Illustration: _Long-nosed Bandicoot_]
+
+First of all there are the bandicoots, two kinds of them, amusingly
+named the long-nosed and the fat bandicoot. One stumbles over a few
+of their holes by day, but no other sign of them is there; yet at
+night out they come by the dozen. We hear them rustling through the
+long swordgrass, right up to the garden where occasionally--not
+often--they do considerable damage by rooting amongst my bulbs. Their
+queer little cough always betrays them, though I must admit they do not
+seem at all anxious about hiding their presence. It always gives me a
+distinct thrill of pleasure to hear that quaint little note just beside
+my verandah, and its wild touch is a happy contrast to the jazz music
+thumped out by my neighbour’s pianola. More silent than the bandicoots,
+though no more stealthy, are the ring-tailed ’possums, of which there
+are quite a number in the wilderness. Last summer one built on the roof
+of our verandah, and every evening, as we sat having our coffee in the
+dusk, we used to hear his little patter across the flat roof. We could
+see him leap forth into a branch of the tall wattle which bent towards
+the verandah, then up and across to the taller redgum beyond, and away
+down into the heart of the wilderness. Sometimes when the hot summer
+nights have driven off sleep I have heard him in the dawn, scrambling
+back to bed, just as the birds have been waking up. I must confess that
+I felt very proud at having such a rare and distinguished lodger.
+
+[Illustration: _The Big ’Possum_]
+
+Occasionally we see the big ’possum. I am not quite sure where he
+lives, though I know two or three likely spots; but now and then he
+comes right out into the open, and we both see and hear him. One
+moonlight night he was feeding on the cedar berries not ten yards from
+the verandah, and even if his clawing and crunching of the berries had
+not betrayed him, he was quite visible as he hung on the swaying bough
+amongst the fern-like leaves, while every now and then as he moved I
+could see his big eyes shining brightly in the moonlight.
+
+[Illustration: _Then there are Owls_]
+
+Then there are owls--three or four sorts of them--which drift in
+absolute silence from place to place. On moonlit nights a sudden shadow
+floats on the ground before you, and if you look up quickly enough you
+will see a white form settling silently on a branch or post. If you
+keep very still and watch patiently you may see him dart down to catch
+some flying insect, or make a sudden swoop at a mouse in the grass
+below. How they see their prey is always one of the wonders of nature
+to me, but apparently they never miss. I like the names of my owls--the
+delicate owl, the masked owl and the Boobook owl--the last so named
+from his familiar double note “Boo-book.”
+
+The old mopoke, who for many years got the credit for the boo-book
+owl’s note, lives in the wilderness, too. Like most of the nocturnal
+creatures, he likes the tall redgum which stands beside my gate, and
+he sits there for an hour at a time constantly uttering his soft
+mysterious note, “Oom, oom, oom.” Sometimes he comes closer, on to
+the fence, or even on to the verandah post itself. In the daytime he
+sits silently for ages in what must be a most uncomfortable position,
+pretending to be a branch of the tree, but at night he gives himself
+away by his “Oom, oom, oom,” for even the dullest human knows that
+trees don’t say “Oom, oom, oom.” Still, he is clever at catching his
+food, and the nocturnal insects find him as formidable as the owls.
+
+Whenever we have a few days rain the little creek in the wilderness
+fills up, and then the frogs make high holiday. Most people will tell
+you that a frog croaks, and leave it at that. But, as a matter of
+fact, in proportion to their numbers, there is as great a variety in
+frog songs as in birds’. Once you have realized the differences you
+will wonder however you were so stupid as to think them all the same.
+There is the deep “Craw-craw, craw-craw” of the big green tree-frog,
+_Hyla coerulea_; the familiar chant, “Craw-awk, crawk, crok, crok,” of
+the golden tree-frog, _Hyla aurea_--I give you their scientific names
+because they are so charming--the slow “Kuk-kuk-kuk,” and the high,
+piping, hurried “Cree-cree-cree-cree” of two other _Hylas_. Then there
+is the insect-like “Crikik, crikik” of the little brown _Crinia_, and
+the harsher “creek” of the tiny brown toadlet. The two frogs which
+rejoice in the name of _Limnodynastes_, “King of the pool,” have
+quite different notes. One has an explosive “Toc, toc, toc,” like a
+machine gun, and the other calls “Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk.” Then the funny old
+burrowing frog calls softly “Oo-oo-oo-oo,” and sounds more like a bird
+than a frog.
+
+On fine mornings after rain, when the croakings overnight have told me
+what is afoot, I visit the little creek to see which of the frogs have
+spawned. A patch of froth, like soapsuds, with tiny spheres of black
+and white embedded in it, is the egg-mass of one or other of the two
+species of _Limnodynastes_. Two kinds of eggs are neatly arranged in
+cylindrical bunches round the submerged roots and grasses. Each egg is
+surrounded by a sphere of clear jelly, and a thin gelatinous matrix
+envelopes all the eggs. Those of _Crinia_ are black and white, those of
+_Hyla ewingi_ brown and cream. Floating on the surface, as if peppered
+over it, are the brown-and-white eggs of _Hyla coerulea_; while hidden
+under the debris round the edges of the water I find the much larger
+eggs of the little _Pseudophryne_, twenty to a nest, with the gaily
+orange-marked mother toadlet in attendance.
+
+[Illustration: _A balloon almost as big as the frog itself_]
+
+All are amusing, as frogs have ever been since the days of Aesop and
+Aristophanes; but there is none so amusing as the big green tree-frog,
+_Hyla coerulea_. He is the one that makes the great frog concert in
+moist places, and many a bad sleeper has cursed him for croaking on
+all through the hours of darkness. But once you have seen one of these
+frog gatherings you can never feel quite the same about their chorus.
+Amusement will temper your irritation. They come from all round the
+neighbourhood to the meeting place, and in the dusk you may even trip
+over the large green frogs hopping along the footpath on their way
+from neighbouring gardens. Often the gathering numbers hundreds, and
+they sit about the edge of the pond, in the grass, and on the stones,
+chanting loudly. And at each deep note a great balloon swells out in
+front of the throat, a balloon almost as big as the frog itself, going
+up and down, up and down, as each deep note goes out and the breath
+comes back for the next boom. I know of nothing in the whole bush quite
+so ludicrous as a frogs’ party, and I must confess that the knowledge
+that so few people have attended one adds to its interest. There is
+a rare satisfaction in being on intimate terms with the really shy,
+strange, wild creatures. If you would share my pleasure all you need
+do is to keep a little wild patch of bush near your home. For wherever
+there is sanctuary the shy bush things will come and make their homes
+beside you.
+
+
+W. C. Penfold & Co. Ltd., Printers, 88 Pitt Street, Sydney
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77055 ***
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+      The Wilderness | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77055 ***</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+
+
+
+<h1>
+THE WILDERNESS
+</h1>
+
+<p class="center">
+BY
+</p>
+
+<p class="center"><strong>
+AMY ELEANOR MACK</strong>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+(Mrs. LAUNCELOT HARRISON)
+</p>
+<br>
+<p class="center">
+AUTHOR OF “A BUSH CALENDAR,” “BUSHLAND<br>
+STORIES,” “SCRIBBLING SUE,” ETC.
+</p>
+<br><br>
+<p class="center">
+<i>Illustrated by John D. Moore</i>
+</p>
+<br><br>
+<p class="center">
+AUSTRALIA:<br>
+ANGUS &amp; ROBERTSON LTD.<br>
+89 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY
+</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p>
+
+
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>“The Wilderness” first appeared in the</i><br>
+<i>Sydney Morning Herald</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Wholly set up and printed in Australia by<br>
+W. C. Penfold &amp; Co., Ltd., 88 Pitt Street, Sydney.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Registered by the Postmaster-General for transmission<br>
+through the post as a book.<br>
+1922
+</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p>
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center">
+TO SUSIE
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+WHO LOVES ALL LIVING THINGS
+</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a><a id="Page_5"></a>[Pg 5]</span></p>
+
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe41_1875" id="i_i04">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_i04.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      “<i>A soft mauve mist</i>”—<i>White Cedar</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<div class="chapter"><h2><i>THE WILDERNESS</i></h2></div>
+
+
+
+<p>Once, long ago, part of it was garden, and the clearing between
+the redgums and ironbarks was planted with fruit trees and
+roses; but the gardener went the way of all flesh, and those
+who came after him did not have the same love for the garden.
+Now the bush has reclaimed its own, and roses and fruit trees are half
+hidden by the tangle of wild things which have gradually crept over
+them. Each spring the fruit blossoms still shine out on the unpruned
+trees—all the lovelier for their disorder—and mingle with the gold of
+the wattles; myriads of undisturbed bulbs—ixias, freesias and
+sparaxis—send up their blooms among the long swordgrass, outrivalling
+the blooms in my own well-worked garden beds.</p>
+
+<p>Lovely as the bush-girt garden must have been in its orderly days,
+it now holds joys undreamed of then. With the creeping return of
+the wattles and tecoma, the mistletoe and hardenbergia, have come
+back many of the shy living creatures which had been driven away by
+the gardening; and now that there is no more digging and planting
+to disturb them they live as happily as if they were a hundred miles
+away from men and houses, instead of in the midst of a popular suburb.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately the wilderness is not a desirable building allotment.
+The little creek which bisects it makes the site too damp for a house,
+and so no ruthless builder casts a speculative eye upon it. But the
+creek is an attraction for numberless creatures—birds, butterflies,
+bandicoots, frogs, and myriads of those tiny living things which we
+carelessly group together as “wogs.”</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figright illowe62_5000" id="i_p06a">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p06a.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>The Paper Wasp’s many-celled nest</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>To the entomologist the wilderness would be a perfect paradise,
+for it is the breeding place of many things—not all loved by the ordinary
+mortal. Many species of ants
+have their homes down there;
+and paper wasps love to make
+their wonderful many-celled
+nests on the old fruit trees.
+Cicads crawl out of the soil
+each spring and creep up the
+gum trunks to shed their husks
+before they wing out to fill
+the wilderness with their
+humming song.</p>
+
+<p>Trapdoor spiders lurk down near the creek, and many of the web-making
+ones spin their light gossamer from branch to branch. Antlions
+have their little pits to
+trap the unwary, and dragonflies
+flitter restlessly over the
+water.</p>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowe62_5000" id="i_p06b">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p06b.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>The Dragonfly</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Most interesting of all to
+the non-entomological mind
+are the butterflies. Down in
+that tangle of trees, grass and
+ferns are to be found the larvæ
+and pupæ of many butterflies which in time develop into living
+jewels. On dull days, and in late afternoons, the funny little
+caterpillars of the small blue butterflies march out in a solemn
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>procession to feed on the thick fleshy leaves of the mistletoe which
+grows so lavishly throughout the wilderness. Later they wander down
+from the mistletoe clumps and enter the nests of the stodgy brown
+sugar-ants to pupate. It is strange to think that these gay, blue
+creatures rise from among such
+queer bed-fellows to flutter round
+my garden flowers. For in time
+all the full-fledged butterflies leave
+the denseness of the wilderness to
+hover over my beds of zinnias and
+larkspurs, outshining the brightest
+blossoms. Most gorgeous, I think,
+are the vivid turquoise blue and
+black ones called Papilio, which
+attract me by their name as much
+as by their beauty. Very lovely,
+also, are the big brown butterflies
+with the eyes on their wings, while
+there is a distinct fascination about the little “skippers” which vary
+in shade from cream to brown, and which are known by their different
+flight.</p>
+
+<figure class="figright illowe62_5000" id="i_p07">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p07.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>The vivid turquoise blue and black Papilio</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The man who made the wilderness garden must have had a true
+Australian love, for even in the cultivated beds he planted native
+things. Along the upper fence he put a row of silver wattles; most
+of them are long since dead, and their bare branches serve as supports
+for the wandering tecoma and the red-berried solanum. But their
+children are scattered throughout the wilderness, making a silver-grey
+mist, which in spring gives way to a golden blaze. They are in every
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>stage of growth, and as the older trees die off there are always new ones
+coming to perfection.</p>
+
+<p>Pittosporums, too, he planted, which fill the mild spring evenings
+with their heavy sweetness; and many Christmas-bushes. These
+enjoy the wealth of food which comes from all the leaf-mould and
+decay, and at Christmas time each year their rosy branches glow like
+beacons through the green glade.</p>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowe35_5625" id="i_p08">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p08.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>The formal cypress shape of the Native Cherry</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Close by the creek grows
+one of the loveliest of the wild
+trees, the native cherry (<i>Exocarpus
+cupressiformis</i>). There is
+quite an old-world charm in its
+formal cypress shape, which
+seems to reprove the irregular
+gums and she-oaks; and the
+gold-green of its tender tips
+stands out in lovely contrast
+against the blue-green and silver-grey
+of the other trees.
+When the setting sun catches it
+through the taller tree trunks it
+glows like a fairy Christmas tree,
+and one can picture the little
+folk dancing round it in a ring.
+It grows at the very edge of the
+once cultivated plot, and I think
+the planner of that garden must
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>have stopped short just there in order to save the lovely thing.
+Beyond all this is natural bush, with tall spotted pink orchids
+pushing through in the spring-time, under the golden pultenea and
+dillwynia, and in summer a white cloud of snowbush.</p>
+
+<p>There is a peculiar fascination in the mixing of wild and tame in
+that wilderness. The white shasta daisies growing higher than my
+head in their effort to see the sun through the too protective red-shooted
+gums; the orange-flowered mistletoe drooping from the tall
+ironbark to touch the appletree
+below, seem to me symbolical of
+that mixing which should come so
+naturally between things—and people—of
+this land and of the old.</p>
+
+<figure class="figright illowe38_6250" id="i_p09">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p09.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>The orange-flowered Mistletoe</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Of all the trees in the wilderness
+there is none which so completely
+satisfies me as the white cedar (<i>Melia
+composita</i>). It grows on the upper
+edge, close to my verandah, and I
+know it through every varying phase.
+I never can decide in which season I
+love it most. It is one of our few
+deciduous trees, and after its pale
+golden leaves have dropped it is bare
+for a short space. Then a soft mauve
+mist breaks over it, and it is covered
+with a myriad lilac-coloured, lilac-scented
+blossoms, which pour their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>perfume lavishly into the world. I think it is a much lovelier
+tree than the lilac, for, while its colour is not so deep, the flowers
+grow in much lighter, more feathery fashion, and the whole effect is
+that of a mass of misty lace. While the blossoms are at their sweetest
+the little green leaf-tips have been bursting through. They grow
+swiftly from slender fingers to waving tassels, and then to open fans,
+and by the time the flowers are finished the tree is dressed in a beautiful
+fern-like foliage of glossy green. Nor do its charms end here. The
+flowers have left behind them hundreds of small green fruits, which
+grow and ripen, and by the time the autumn comes again and the leaves
+begin to fall they are ready to provide a beautiful feast for the birds.
+And so comes the white cedar’s crowning charm.</p>
+
+<p>A tree without birds in its branches is like a room without books
+on its shelves—the birds are the crowning charm. The poet knew that
+when he wrote ecstatically of—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry">
+<div class="stanza"><div class="verse indent0">A tree that may in summer wear</div>
+<div class="verse indent0">A nest of robins in her hair.</div></div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>My white cedar does not wear any nest in her hair, but each autumn her
+charm is enhanced by the beautiful green oriole in her branches.</p>
+
+<p>In autumn the fat green berries have grown golden and juicy,
+and the oriole comes to feast upon them. He really has no right to be
+so near Sydney nowadays, for he is one of the larger birds, which have
+been driven back by the advance of the city; but somehow or other,
+in the mysterious bird way, he learned of my white cedar, and each
+year he comes to spend a month or so in the wilderness, feasting on
+the berries, and in between meals filling the autumn day with his lovely,
+clear ringing song. He is one of the lucky birds, whose voice matches
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>his form in beauty. For he is, indeed, a beautiful bird, with his olive
+green back, creamy breast streaked with black, and bright red eye and
+bill. He is big enough, too, to show up in the landscape, and towards
+the end of his stay, when the cedar is nearly leafless, he makes a lovely
+note of colour on the bare branches against the blue sky.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe62_5000" id="i_p11">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p11.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>The beautiful green Oriole</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>But he has rivals in the wilderness—many rivals, both in voice and
+appearance. I am not sure that the blue jays are not more lovely to
+look at. Their silvery bodies and black faces are not so gay, of course,
+but they are slim and slender, and they float through the tree-tops
+with wonderful grace. They come in flocks to the wilderness during
+the winter, and it is a joy to watch them swaying in the tree-tops,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>then darting suddenly down to catch an insect on the wing, and up
+again to their swinging perch. Pity ’tis their voice has no beauty, but
+is just a querulous squawking note.</p>
+
+<p>Handsome creatures, too, are the dollar-birds which visit the
+wilderness every year and drift amongst the tall tree-tops, displaying
+the silvery dollars on their wings against a blue-and-brown background.
+But their voices!—a small boy compared them to a lot of mad frogs,
+and the description is not inapt. Fortunately for our ears these
+harsh-voiced birds are short-stayed visitors, but many of the birds
+that linger in the wilderness are true singers.</p>
+
+<p>As I write the air is filled with the glorious song of the butcher-birds,
+which stay with us all through the late summer and autumn and
+sometimes come in the spring. I have heard all the old-world songbirds—the
+nightingale and the lark, the blackbird and the thrush—heard
+and loved them all. But for sheer beauty and volume I know
+no bird whose voice compares with the butcher-bird’s, and I think
+it is a sin that he should be so named.</p>
+
+<p>It is not his habit of making an occasional meal from a small
+bird that has given the butcher-bird his name, for many birds have the
+same habit. It is his peculiar custom of storing his food that has gained
+him the reputation of keeping a “butcher’s shop.” Most birds kill
+an insect as they need it and either eat it or carry it off to their nestlings.
+The butcher-bird thriftily makes a small collection of insects and lays
+them in a row. I have seen him lay a huge brown grasshopper and a
+slim praying mantis side by side on my garden rail, and then fly off
+and hang another grasshopper in a slender fork of a wattle.</p>
+
+<p>Gould, in his famous work, pictures the butcher-bird with a blue
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>wren hanging from a fork in the tree beside him, a picture which
+naturally ruined the bird’s reputation. I am happy to say I have never
+seen that horrid tragedy, and from personal observation I think that
+insects are a much more usual part of his diet than are little birds.
+At any rate, with such a beautiful voice he deserves the benefit of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>doubt. I hope it is not characteristic of us that in naming him we
+should have overlooked his rare beauty and pounced on his little weakness,
+though I cannot help thinking that in more aesthetic lands he
+would have had a name more suited to his beautiful song.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe58_6250" id="i_p13">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p13.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>Our best autumn singer—the Butcher-bird</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The butcher-bird—since I must call him so—is our best autumn
+singer, but in the spring his place is taken by the grey thrush. He
+is next, I think, on the list of our songbirds, and his sweet ringing call
+holds all the freshness and joy of spring. He is such a darling bird
+to have about the place. He perches on the redgum or the wattles,
+which stand in line with the white cedar, and he looks down at me
+with his big round eye in the friendliest fashion. So graceful he is,
+too, and so elegant in his neat grey coat, that I always place him in
+my mind amongst the beautiful birds, though some might call him
+plain.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst you might dispute the grey thrush’s claim to beauty, no
+one can deny that of two other of my songbirds, the two thickheads,
+or thunderbirds, as they are sometimes called, because they burst
+into song after a clap of thunder or any sudden noise. The yellow-breasted
+one is very gorgeous, with his white throat and black face;
+but the rufous-breasted one is handsome, too. Sometimes he breaks
+into a whip-like note, which has earned him the name of “ring-coachie”
+amongst small boys. Once, on a rare occasion, the coachwhip bird
+himself sent his call up from the little creek. As every one knows, the
+coachwhip bird is a shy, furtive creature, rarely seen by anyone but
+real bird observers, though his voice is common enough in the gullies.
+We are nearly a mile away from the gully where he lives, and he must
+have crept up through the intervening gardens to have a look at the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>wilderness. Just once he came, but though I have looked and listened
+I have had no sign or sound of him since.</p>
+
+<p>A very familiar birdcall in the wilderness is that of the cuckoo—or
+I should say “calls of the cuckoos,” for there are five different sorts,
+with five different calls, amongst our regular visitors. Of course, none
+of them says “cuckoo.” Once I used to cherish a secret feeling of
+resentment that we should have so many true cuckoos in Australia
+without one possessing the call associated with the name. But after
+four English Mays, in which the cuckoo calls all day, I thanked fate
+that I lived in a land where the cuckoo did not say “cuckoo” from dawn
+till long after dark. For a more monotonous birdcall I have never
+known. Our big scrub-cuckoo, the Koel, is nearest to it in monotony;
+but the five that visit the wilderness have quite different songs. True,
+the fantail and the two little bronze cuckoos have merely plaintive
+Whistles, but the big pallid cuckoo has a fine ringing song right up the
+scale, and the square-tailed calls over and over a distinct phrase, in
+a higher key each time.</p>
+
+<figure class="figright illowe62_5000" id="i_p15">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p15.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>A simple creature</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The shrike-tit, that gorgeous
+yellow-and-black fellow with the black
+crest, is one of the loveliest birds
+amongst our regular visitors, and one
+of my favourites, for he has such an
+unsuspicious nature. His long drawn
+out, rather plaintive note is very easy
+to imitate, and we can always bring
+him down to us by repeating the call.
+Again and again I have seen the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>simple creature hurrying through the wilderness in response to a
+human whistle, and flying wonderingly from tree to tree in search of
+his calling rival. Sometimes he comes within a few feet of us,
+dancing with rage and chattering angrily at the hidden intruder,
+before he discovers the fraud and flies off in disgust.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe62_5000" id="i_p16">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p16.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>The attractive Lalage</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>A visitor which has a particular attraction for me is the Lalage.
+I like his smart coat of black and white and grey, and I like his sweet
+trilling song, but what I like most is his name—his scientific name.
+For he is one of the few birds whose scientific name is preferable to the
+vernacular or the colloquial; <i>Lalage tricolor</i> is far prettier and
+easier to say than “White-shouldered caterpillar-eater,” or the stupid
+“peewee lark.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>Other birds that visit us occasionally are parrots. I have noticed
+five kinds—Rosellas, Mountain Lowrie, Blue Mountain parrots, and
+two little green lorikeets. They have always come when the eucalypts
+are in flower, and I love to see their gay bodies flashing against the
+creamy blossoms as they feed noisily on the honey. If only people
+would realize how much life and colour they bring to their gardens by
+retaining food-giving trees, I am sure they would not be so ruthless
+about cutting down trees to make way for roses and dahlias. No bed
+of flowers could be so soul-satisfying as the sight of a flock of parrakeets
+feeding in the honey-laden blossoms of a flower-covered bloodwood.</p>
+
+<p>Just as gay as the parrots, though very, very much smaller, is
+the red-headed honey-eater, or bloodbird, as he is more familiarly
+known. He is also a honey lover, and visits us when the trees are in
+blossom. His bright red-and-black coat makes a vivid spot of colour,
+and his pretty little song adds to the general harmony.</p>
+
+<p>The profusion of mistletoe in the wilderness brings us the mistletoe-bird.
+Few people really know this tiny steel-blue crimson-breasted
+fellow, or his plain grey little wife. Yet his single whistle, like that of
+a small boy who has just learned to whistle through his teeth, is one
+of the commonest sounds in the bush, and the mated birds call continuously
+when feeding in different clumps, as if they feared to lose
+touch with one another. One of the great charms of a wattle, which
+till lately stood beside my verandah, was that its leafy tops were beloved
+by the mistletoe-bird. When he had taken his fill of the luscious
+and viscid berries which dropped from the redgum by the gate, he
+would retire to the wattle, hide himself amongst the grey-green foliage,
+and pour out an ecstasy of song in the tiniest of voices. Many birds,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>even to so bold a fellow as the butcher-bird, have this habit of hiding
+amongst the thickest leaves and soliloquizing, but none has a more
+impassioned utterance than the little mistletoe-bird, though none has
+so slender a song.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we find their nest, one of the most wonderfully built
+of all birds’ nests. It is woven from fine plant fibres and silky seeds,
+and is hung from a slender twig, with a little entrance at the side; it
+is very like a little purse of felt, save that it is not so harsh to the touch
+as felt.</p>
+
+<figure class="figleft illowe62_5000" id="i_p18">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p18.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>Spine-billed Honeyeater</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>One more of our visitors I must mention, and that is the native
+canary, which comes each year, builds his little domed nest in a sapling,
+and fills the air with his
+sweet song. Then there
+are the everyday birds, the
+dear, familiar things which
+are with us all the year
+round. Every gardener
+knows them—blue wrens
+and tits, jacky winters and
+yellow robins, redheads
+and spinebills, peewees and kookaburras—they are the usual
+inhabitants of our suburban gardens, and dear to us all
+because of their friendly, fearless ways. Other birds come and go,
+but they stay with us all the time, building and breeding in the wilderness
+each spring. In the two years that I have known this wild patch
+I have counted seventy-two species of birds passing through. Some,
+as I have said, are there all the time; some come at certain seasons,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>sing for a space amongst the tree-tops, feed for a week or so on the berries
+and blossoms, then pass on to other feeding grounds, while others stay
+just for an hour, glad of a safe and
+sheltered resting-place on their
+long, mysterious journeys to and
+fro across the land.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe62_5000" id="i_p19">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p19.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>So tame and friendly—Blue Wrens</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Fascinating as the wilderness is by day, it is at night that one
+feels its deepest spell. Then all the strange elusive creatures come out
+from their hiding places, and go about their business in the tree-tops
+or down under the thick shrubs. One needs keen hearing to know
+the wilderness by night, for eyes alone are not much good.</p>
+
+<p>I can never make up my mind which I love most—the birds that
+live all the year round in the wilderness, and are so tame and friendly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>that they come right up on to my verandah and sit and sing within a
+yard of my chair, or the visitors which bring the feeling of distant places
+with them, and carry my thoughts far, far away. But of one thing
+I am sure, and that is my gratitude to the man who left this little wild
+patch in the heart of the houses to be a sanctuary for all wild things.
+Noisy people passing by may think it is a mere empty patch of trees;
+but we who have sat silently on our verandah through the long still
+summer evenings and listened to the whisperings and stirrings, know
+that there is a distinct world of living things waking and moving down
+there in the shadows.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe62_5000" id="i_p20">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p20.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>Long-nosed Bandicoot</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>First of all there are the bandicoots, two kinds of them, amusingly
+named the long-nosed and the fat bandicoot. One stumbles over a
+few of their holes by day, but no other sign of them is there; yet at
+night out they come by the dozen. We hear them rustling through the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>long swordgrass, right up to the garden where occasionally—not often—they
+do considerable damage by rooting amongst my bulbs. Their
+queer little cough always betrays them, though I must admit they do
+not seem at all anxious about hiding their presence.</p>
+<figure class="figcenter illowe62_5000" id="i_p21">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p21.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>The Big ’Possum</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<p>It always gives me
+a distinct thrill of pleasure to hear that quaint little note just beside
+my verandah, and its wild touch is a happy contrast to the jazz music
+thumped out by my neighbour’s pianola. More silent than the bandicoots,
+though no more stealthy, are the ring-tailed ’possums, of which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>there are quite a number in the wilderness. Last summer one built
+on the roof of our verandah, and every evening, as we sat having our
+coffee in the dusk, we used to hear his little patter across the flat roof.
+We could see him leap forth into a branch of the tall wattle which bent
+towards the verandah, then up and across to the taller redgum beyond,
+and away down into the heart of the wilderness. Sometimes when the
+hot summer nights have driven off sleep I have heard him in
+the dawn, scrambling back to bed, just as the birds have
+been waking up. I must confess
+that I felt very proud at
+having such a rare and distinguished
+lodger.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally we see the big
+’possum. I am not quite sure
+where he lives, though I know
+two or three likely spots; but
+now and then he comes right out
+into the open, and we both see
+and hear him. One moonlight
+night he was feeding on the
+cedar berries not ten yards from
+the verandah, and even if his
+clawing and crunching of the
+berries had not betrayed him,
+he was quite visible as he hung
+on the swaying bough amongst
+the fern-like leaves, while every
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>now and then as he moved I could see his big eyes shining
+brightly in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<figure class="figright illowe37_3125" id="i_p22">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p22.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>Then there are Owls</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Then there are owls—three or four sorts of them—which drift in
+absolute silence from place to place. On moonlit nights a sudden
+shadow floats on the ground before you, and if you look up quickly
+enough you will see a white form settling silently on a branch or post.
+If you keep very still and watch patiently you may see him dart down
+to catch some flying insect, or make a sudden swoop at a mouse in the
+grass below. How they see their prey is always one of the wonders of
+nature to me, but apparently they never miss. I like the names of my
+owls—the delicate owl, the masked owl and the Boobook owl—the
+last so named from his familiar double note “Boo-book.”</p>
+
+<p>The old mopoke, who for many years got the credit for the boo-book
+owl’s note, lives in the wilderness, too. Like most of the nocturnal
+creatures, he likes the tall redgum which stands beside my gate, and
+he sits there for an hour at a time constantly uttering his soft mysterious
+note, “Oom, oom, oom.” Sometimes he comes closer, on to the fence,
+or even on to the verandah post itself. In the daytime he sits silently
+for ages in what must be a most uncomfortable position, pretending to
+be a branch of the tree, but at night he gives himself away by his “Oom,
+oom, oom,” for even the dullest human knows that trees don’t say
+“Oom, oom, oom.” Still, he is clever at catching his food, and the
+nocturnal insects find him as formidable as the owls.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever we have a few days rain the little creek in the wilderness
+fills up, and then the frogs make high holiday. Most people will tell
+you that a frog croaks, and leave it at that. But, as a matter of fact,
+in proportion to their numbers, there is as great a variety in frog songs
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>as in birds’. Once you have realized the differences you will wonder
+however you were so stupid as to think them all the same. There
+is the deep “Craw-craw, craw-craw” of the big green tree-frog, <i>Hyla
+coerulea</i>; the familiar chant, “Craw-awk, crawk, crok, crok,” of the
+golden tree-frog, <i>Hyla aurea</i>—I give you their scientific names because
+they are so charming—the slow “Kuk-kuk-kuk,” and the high, piping,
+hurried “Cree-cree-cree-cree” of two other <i>Hylas</i>. Then there is the
+insect-like “Crikik, crikik” of the little brown <i>Crinia</i>, and the harsher
+“creek” of the tiny brown toadlet. The two frogs which rejoice in
+the name of <i>Limnodynastes</i>, “King of the pool,” have quite different
+notes. One has an explosive “Toc, toc, toc,” like a machine gun,
+and the other calls “Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk.” Then the funny old burrowing
+frog calls softly “Oo-oo-oo-oo,” and sounds more like a bird than
+a frog.</p>
+
+<p>On fine mornings after rain, when the croakings overnight have
+told me what is afoot, I visit the little creek to see which of the frogs
+have spawned. A patch of froth, like soapsuds, with tiny spheres of
+black and white embedded in it, is the egg-mass of one or other of the
+two species of <i>Limnodynastes</i>. Two kinds of eggs are neatly arranged
+in cylindrical bunches round the submerged roots and grasses. Each
+egg is surrounded by a sphere of clear jelly, and a thin gelatinous
+matrix envelopes all the eggs. Those of <i>Crinia</i> are black and white,
+those of <i>Hyla ewingi</i> brown and cream. Floating on the surface, as
+if peppered over it, are the brown-and-white eggs of <i>Hyla coerulea</i>;
+while hidden under the debris round the edges of the water I find the
+much larger eggs of the little <i>Pseudophryne</i>, twenty to a nest, with the
+gaily orange-marked mother toadlet in attendance.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p>
+<figure class="figleft illowe39_1250" id="i_p25">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/i_p25.png" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <i>A balloon almost as big as the frog itself</i>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>All are amusing, as frogs have ever been since the days of Aesop
+and Aristophanes; but there is none so amusing as the big green
+tree-frog, <i>Hyla coerulea</i>. He is the one that makes the great frog concert
+in moist places, and many a
+bad sleeper has cursed him for
+croaking on all through the
+hours of darkness. But once
+you have seen one of these frog
+gatherings you can never feel
+quite the same about their
+chorus. Amusement will temper
+your irritation. They come from
+all round the neighbourhood to
+the meeting place, and in the
+dusk you may even trip over the
+large green frogs hopping along
+the footpath on their way from
+neighbouring gardens. Often
+the gathering numbers hundreds,
+and they sit about the
+edge of the pond, in the grass,
+and on the stones, chanting
+loudly. And at each deep note
+a great balloon swells out in
+front of the throat, a balloon almost as big as the frog itself, going
+up and down, up and down, as each deep note goes out and the
+breath comes back for the next boom. I know of nothing in the whole
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>bush quite so ludicrous as a frogs’ party, and I must confess that the
+knowledge that so few people have attended one adds to its interest.
+There is a rare satisfaction in being on intimate terms with the really
+shy, strange, wild creatures. If you would share my pleasure all you
+need do is to keep a little wild patch of bush near your home. For
+wherever there is sanctuary the shy bush things will come and make
+their homes beside you.</p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center">W. C. Penfold &amp; Co. Ltd., Printers, 88 Pitt Street, Sydney</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77055 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77055
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77055)