104 MOTH HUNTING. 



home, the tent is struck, and with the game and fish stowed away in 

 the boat. The ladies and children are on the opposite shore gathering 

 flowers and plants, and as we row the boat across, we rest on our oars close 

 to the bank, and I take "a last fond look" at those pleasant scenes which 

 I shall never see again. 



A little girl stands upon a rock, and as she recognises us, her dark 

 eyes flash with pleasure, and a merry laugh greets our approach. Her 

 lap is full of the wax-like flowers of the Epacris, and the wanton wind 

 plays amongst the brown tresses of her hair. As I gaze the scene grows 

 blurred and indistinct, for I am looking at it through my tears. Woe 

 for the brown ringlets, and woe for the sad parents' hearts, for the little 

 form sleeps now in the cemetery at Kensall Green; there withered and 

 dead she lies, that little Australian flower. For "the wind hath passed 

 over it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more." 



Then we hoist our sail to the freshening sea-breeze, the water is parted 

 at the bows with a pleasant lap-lapping sound, the Bell-birds ring out a 

 mournful peal from the Tea -tree scrub, as we glide swiftly by, and so 

 ends our trip "Down the River."* 



MOTH HUNTING; OR AN EVENING IN A WOOD: 

 BEING TWO LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A NATURALIST. 



BY MR. THOMAS EDWARD. 



f Concluded from page 88. ) 



LEAF II. 



Well, I declare, how strange, how very strange I must have looked, 

 had any one seen me, on discovering my error. What will not an over- 

 heated, or an over -taxed fancy do or pourtray at times to itself? In this 

 case, however, distance and the gloom of the place had both aided to 

 deceive. But, by-the-bye, there was no very great mistake, if any, after 

 all. The monster, or rather the nondescript, it is true had vanished, by 

 assuming a new and well-known form, or rather forms, but then I had 

 been for many years on the look-out for a Badger, for a literary a^ well 

 as a scientific purpose, and had never as yet obtained one, and now 

 that I had no fewer than three almost within my longing grasp, why 

 the very idea was intoxicating in the extreme. But how was I to act in 

 order to procure one. Ahl there was the rub, or rather the difficulty. 

 I had three to deal with now instead of one, and just in the same way, 

 for I saw no other, as I intended at first when I thought I had the old 

 chap himself to deal with, namely, to fall down upon as soon as they 

 came up to me, and grapple with as many as I could get hold of in order 



* I should be glad of some more sucli well-written papers from Mr. Walker. — F. 0. Morbis. 



