The dove beside me would frighten me if she made such a loud whirring noise.'

'Then be very good, and not provoke it from me.' 'Your large tribe of honey-eaters much interested me.'

'I doubt it not, for men have a great sympathy with all feeders. Some of you think to offer us girls some honey, but it is cheaply tendered in the form of speech. Just now you were severely criticising our rough, homespun honeysuckle, the Banksia; but did you not perceive that its sweet bags of flowers are courted by your lively honey-eaters, including the chattering Miner?'

'That must be conceded. I beg pardon of the Banksia. These birds were so happy there, with their gold-edged wings and pretty brush-like tongue. What a curious lunar-shaped black mark down each side of the breast the male has! The tail feathers, I find, are of brownish-black, fringed with golden yellow at the base.'

'Yes,' cried the lady; 'but have you noticed the two long, lateral feathers, with long, oval, white spots? The bill and feet are black, but the throat and chest are white. I examined a nest once, and admired the inner lining of the soft woolly parts of blossoms. Our Tasmanian honeyeater revels in the tubular flowers of the Epacris. It flies very high, and after long drawing out a single note rattles off a double one in quick succession.'

'I was some time before I understood your Leatherhead, with his bare crown and neck, and his long tail and bill. Then I recognised his likeness to the English Poor Soldier. His note is like our Four o'clock, and his pate like the Monk-bird's shaven top. What does he feed upon?'

It is not at all particular, taking the pollen or piece of fruit when no insect is at hand. It has such a funny. cup-like nest! But curious as its note is, that of the Wattle-bird is more peculiar.'

'Right. It put me in mind of the noise a landsman makes when crossing the channel in a rough sea. As it loves the Banksia, which grows on bad land, it is not a welcome sight to a farm-hunter. Your Podargus, the Morepork, so called from its calling everlastingly for more pork, is not of the Jenny Lind order.'

'And a sleepy-headed fellow is that owl nightroamer. I heard of one, that might have been overtired insect-hunting the evening before, but which never waked at the report of a gun, though his mate fell dead beside him.'

'Your night-birds, Annie, are very numerous, I

learn.'

'Our nights, as you must have observed, are so often attractive that others besides owls admire them.'

'Lovers do, most assuredly, when Romeos and Juliets can walk beneath stars and moon, without fear of toothache or rheumatism. But your bright days are just the times for your merry flocks of shrieking

parrakeets. I have been astonished at the clouds of them. There are the blue-banded, the yellow, the blue-and-orange-bellied, the rosehill, the swift, the small, the ground parrakeet, and I know not what else more. The honey-eaters are the most numerous

of the lot.'

'How do you naturalists class the family?'

'The Psittacidæ are in four groups. The first are found in the banksia and she-oaks; the second delight in the orchis; the third love the nectar of your gumtrees; while the fourth, as ground and grass parrakeets, have their affections set on grass seeds. There are about sixty species.'

'Ah, Horace! you should see the flocks of white and black cockatoos on the Huon, and a flight of many bronze-winged sort.'

'You are certainly great in the ornamental, dear, but sadly wanting in the useful. You are indebted for breakfast eggs to the hens imported from abroad.'

'Bless me! Horace, you must not imagine that I am so ardently Tasmanian as to object to importations. I certainly prefer the English pear-tree to that producing wooden nuts on the side of Mount Wellington. I am not bound to pluck the wretched fruit of the Macquarie Harbour vine rather than the luscious grape introduced into our gardens. It does not follow '—

'Let me finish the rest, my beauty; it does not follow that you should decline so agreeable an importation as myself to accept a half-caste Tasmanian.'

'That observation, sir, did not escape me.

birds, sir. them ?'

To your

Have you anything more to remark of

I have no strength of will to go further, but would fain take my flight from birds on the wings of love.'

'Now that is really most unkind of you,' said the young lady, with the prettiest of pouts on her pretty lips. You know I can't even mount to the region of the birds, and you desire a flight even from them. Is that the extent of imported affection for a Tasmanian lass?'

The natural history was then forgotten in some very natural proceedings, of more interest and value to the two persons themselves than to the general reader.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE PIC-NIC UNDER THE MOUNTAIN.

THE great pleasures of cities are associated with crowds. In Tasmania they are sought amidst the glens of shadowy foliage, by the moss banks of mountain rivulets, and, especially, in Fern Tree valleys.

A grand pic-nic was got up by our friends Horace and Tom. Relations, friends, and neighbours were liberally invited. Each party, family, or individual came provided for the occasion. It was no demonstration of knife-and-fork glory, and gave no oppor

tunity for the display of luxurious habits. Everybody brought enough, and to spare. Everybody expected everybody to help through his or her particular assemblage of good things.

And what did they take? Certainly not that English hamper, made up and directed in Piccadilly. No firms catered for the supply, and no neat cases of wines were furnished. Home-made were the packets of provision. All the pasties, pies, tarts, sausage rolls, &c., had been prepared by the ladies of the group. The young fellows had had a hand at the sandwiches, and had helped in fixing the bigger parcels, as well as securing carpet bags. The porterage through the bush was confided especially to the masculine element, unless maternal housekeeping anxieties were called forth on account of some special packages of more delicate dainties; then the gentler care of woman was required. But what did they take to drink?

Here, alas! confession must be made that primitive colonial ways have not been quite superseded, though not a little affected, by the march of civilization since the gold discovery. With a sigh of conscious inferiority in the scale of progress, the pic-nic ramblers must admit that they do not take anything but eatables, as a rule. But they do take a kettle, or the approved billy. They count upon lots of the purest water from the mountain, and the young men are delighted with the operation of fire lighting, only the kettle or billy stands a chance of being consumed in