Cumberland hounds meet occasionally in the neighbourhood of Homebush, and I hoped they would find and destroy some; but though repeatedly on the scent, they did not succeed, and the members of the "hunt" seemed generally to prefer having their fox (dingo) in a bag, to the trouble, or, as I should have supposed it, sport of finding one in the forest.

The "flying fox" of New South Wales is an animal I do not remember to have seen any published account of, yet it is a very remarkable one. I had often heard Mr. Meredith speak of the quantities of these creatures that he had seen on the shores of the Hunter's River, but was not aware we had any of them near us, until one moonlight night, whilst initiating an English friend into the barbarous mysteries of opossum-shooting (familiarly termed "possumin "), he heard a great flapping and rustling amongst the branches and leaves above his head, and firing, brought down a very fine specimen of the flying fox.

I forget the dimensions which Dr. Buckland assigns to the pterodactyle, the gigantic bat of a former world; but this seemed a not unworthy representative of the species, the wings measuring between four and five feet at their full expansion, and the body being larger than that of a well-conditioned rat. The head more resembles that of a dog than a bat, covered, like the middle and hinder portions of the body, with thick black fur, that round the neck being fox-coloured. The claws and limbs of the wings are very strong, and the membrane very tough and elastic.

These giant bats are especially destructive in orchards, as they have a great penchant for ripe fruit, particularly peaches, and their mode of gathering their dessert not being economical, they knock off great quantities while buffeting about in the trees; added to which, their scent is so exceedingly unpleasant that no fruit they have once touched is eatable.

Several of a small

I never saw any other large bats here. kind, apparently very similar to the common little English bat, used to flit about the house in an evening; but I liked them too well to molest them.

One dead specimen of the flying opossum was brought to me. The head greatly resembles in its gentle expression those of the other kinds of opossum, and with a still greater length of prehensile tail. The fore and hind legs on either side are enclosed

in the soft, elastic, furry membrane, which spreads like a bat's wing from the back, leaving only the sharply clawed feet exposed. On having the body skinned, I observed that this membrane was double, and easily separated, but without the slightest particle of any other substance between the two thin, almost transparent textures. The upper portion was covered with warm black fur; the under part had a thinner covering of soft, greyish white hair.

Several of the mischievous little animals commonly called native cats (Dasyurus · ?) were destroyed by our dogs. They seem to occupy the same place in Australia that the weasel and ferret family do at home, being terribly destructive if they can get into the henhouse; not only killing to eat, but continuing to kill as many fowls or turkeys as they have time for, leaving a sad spectacle of mangled corses behind them. They are pretty, but have a sharp, vicious countenance, very different to the deerlike expression of the herbivorous animals here. Their common colour is grey, finely spotted with white; the tail thin, covered with rather long, wiry hair, which forms a sort of tassel at the end. They are about the size of a lean, half-grown domestic cat, very agile, fierce, and strong, and extremely tenacious of life. Dogs seem to have a natural propensity to destroy them, but sometimes find the engagement rather more equal than they might wish.

Very few birds came near our house, but among those few was the robin (Petroica phœnicea?), as much more beautiful in plumage as he is inferior in note to our winter darling in England, but with exactly the same jaunty air, and brisk, quick manner. His attire is, I really think, the most exquisite of all the feathered creatures here: the breast is the most vivid geranium-colour, softening to a paler shade towards the wings, which are glossy black, with clear white markings across them; the back is also black, with a white spot on the crown of the head, and the tail-feathers are also barred with white. The colours are so clear and distinct as almost to convey the idea of different garments put on and fitted with the most exquisite taste; whilst the gay, frolicsome air, and intelligent, bright, black eyes of the little beau tell you that he is by no means unconscious of the very favourable impression his appearance must create. He

hops about, sings a few notes of a soft, lively little song; flies to a rail or low tree, and arranges some fancied impropriety in a wing-feather; then surveys the glossy spread of his tail as he peeps over his shoulder, and after a few more hops, and another small warble, very sweet and very low--a passing glance, like the flash of a tiny flambeau, and he is gone!

Some robins, which I supposed the females, have a less vivid scarlet on the breast, though similar in all other respects.

When we first came to Homebush, I observed fragments of many swallows' nests in the veranda, and marks where others had been, but had wholly crumbled away, the constant heat so drying the mud that it could not stick, and the poor birds were in constant danger of losing both their patient labour and their helpless young. To obviate this sad distress, I had a few little shelves nailed up in the most retired part of the veranda, as foundations for the nests, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing a nice strong superstructure raised on one of them, from which in process of time five downy little heads emerged, opening very wide mouths for the food constantly supplied by the parent birds. Only one family placed themselves thus under our immediate protection, but many others built in the old barn and other outhouses.

One bird which frequently came near the house has a very singular note, which has gained for him the Colonial sobriquet of the "knife-grinder;" a portion of his song bearing a most accurate resemblance to the sound of grinding a knife on the grindstone, giving exactly the crrew whissss ss-, but in a most musical and dulcet tone. His attire, as befitting an artisan, is somewhat sober and plain.

Another equally singular voice among our feathered friends was that of the "coachman," than which no title could be more appropriate, his chief note being a long clear whistle, with a smart crack of the whip to finish with. Although I have often heard his fine clear voice sounding far above me, from his favourite perch in the top of the highest tree near, I never had a distinct view of Mr. Jehu.

The "bell-bird" has, as may be supposed, won its appellation from the resemblance of its deep full voice to the tones of a bell; and that general favourite, the "laughing jackass," equally well merits the first portion of his title, by his merry and most musical

peals of laughter; but why he should be called a "jackass" at all, I am at a loss to divine. Under this name, however, he is generally respected in the colony, being an adroit destroyer of snakes, guanas, and other reptiles. When many of these merry birds congregate together, the effect is extremely droll: first one begins alone, and laughs lustily out at the top of his voice; a second, third, and fourth then take up the strain, like glee-singers, till the whole party are fairly off, and the very trees seem to peal out along with them. I am half inclined to fancy that Martini's popular laughing chorus," Vadasi via di qua," must have been suggested by the voices of my friends the Australian jackasses; certain it is, that both songs have an equally infectious spirit, and set the most gloomy-minded listener laughing in concert, whether he will or no. The poor birds often fall victims to their own accomplishments, for, being much esteemed as "pets," they are frequently maimed to prevent their escape, and tied by the leg or closely caged, whilst their less human persecutors spoil their naturally merry voices by teaching them à few lame bars of some London-alley tune; and "All round my Hat," "Jump Jim Crow," or "Sich a getting up Stairs," tells a melancholy story of their miserable fate.

Many small birds, with which I am not sufficiently acquainted to describe them, inhabited our woods; and one or two kinds of "larks," as they are called, used to rise in considerable numbers from the dry grass-tufts, as we walked over the cleared land. A few quail, a chance wild duck or teal, and one solitary snipe, formed our list of game at Homebush, and I scarcely saw a parrot during our stay.

CHAPTER XV.

Norfolk Island Pine-English Pear-tree-Daisy-Bush Flowers-Creepers -"He-oak"-Zamia-" Wooden Pear-tree"-Native Cherry-Insect Architecture-Twig Nests, &c.-Butterflies-Ground-Spiders-Tarantula— Silk-Spiders-Scorpions-Hornets-Mosquitoes-Ants.

THE Norfolk Island pine (Aracauria excelsa), of which, as I have before remarked, we had three magnificent specimens close to the house, is certainly the most noble and stately tree of all the pine family that I have ever seen, beautiful as are they all. The tall, erect, and tapering stem (seventy or eighty feet high), the regularity of the circling branches, lessening by small degrees from the widely-spread expanse below, to the tiny cross that crowns the summit of the exquisite natural spire, and the richly verdant, dense, massive foliage clothing the whole with an unfading array of scale-armour, form altogether the finest model of a pine that can be imagined. The cones too are worthy to grow on such a tree; solid ponderous things, as large as a child's head-not a baby's head, neither-with a fine embossed coat of mail, firmly seated on the beam-like branches, as if defying the winds to shake them.

Mr. Meredith climbed very nearly to the summit of our tallest pine, and said he had never seen anything more beautiful than the downward view into and over the mass of diverging branches spread forth beneath him. He brought me down one cone, with its spray, if so I may call the armful of thick green shoots that surrounded it, and I was gazing at it for half the day after; it was so different from anything I had seen before, so new, and so grandly beautiful. The rigidity of the foliage had a sculpturelike character, that made me think how exquisitely Gibbons would have wrought its image in some of his graceful and stately designs, had he ever seen the glorious tree.

One of those at Homebush grew near to the front veranda,