on birds of the South.



145



Magpies, Hawks, etc. Out from Goulburn, just now, on the road to

Lake Bathurst and Tarago, the fields and undulating plains are one

mass of shining green, and all the wealth of pasture land and bird

life lies close to view. Acre after acre and mile after mile of meadow,

sheltering thousands of sheep and soft new white lambs, wealthy

homesteads well back in the broad acres, and bird life full of sheen

and brightness—the big silvery Grey Crane, the Blue and Scarlet

Rosella, the Green Parakeet, the Dollar Bird, and Plover darting in

and under the hedges that are heavy with the sweet fragrance of

wild briar in October. As you come to the more thickly-wooded land

round Tarago and Braidwood, the flocks of larger birds increase,

White Cockatoos hover over the tall treetops. Braidwood is a pretty

little town of decadent glory and largely deserted, for gold and tin

mining no longer flourish as in the old days, new and more payable

centres having been discovered. But on the thickly-timbered roads

towards the coast the white, shining quartz lies in heaps by the

roadside, and you can still see the gold dredges at work and the races

made in the old-time days for sluicing the gold out of the hills. On

these hills the Parrots are glorious, King Parrots in scarlet and green,

flocks of Gang Gangs, scarlet crowned with bodies of slate grey,

Lorys, Parakeets, and Rosellas in colours of rich crimson and pale

blue, cerise, purple, turquoise, emerald, scarlet, yellow, or eau-de-nil,

flashing in and out of tall trees their beautiful sunlit glory, and

finding a beautiful setting in the long red road with the little white

bridges over streams fringed with drooping willows and backed by

big purple mountains.


Between the ranges and the coast you see the Bronzewing

Pigeon now and then, the Blue Pigeon growing scarcer each year,

and in the gullies you may hear the music of the Lyre Bird that has

escaped the prowling depredations of Master Reynard.


At Bateman’s Bay, the Clyde River flows in a broad expanse

to meet the ocean, and a flock of black and wdfite Pelicans fly over

like miniature aeroplanes, while scarlet-footed, scarlet-beaked Seagulls

in utter fearlessness, ride triumphantly over surf and storm wrack.

Farther south, they tell us, you may come by chance on the little

silvery “ting ting ” note of the Bell Bird, immortalised in Kendall s

ode to September, But year by year, despite laws for their protect-


11



