192 AUSTRALIAN PICTURES. 



a prototype Of the British bird, provides good shooting, more especially in 

 Gippsland. British epicures would be shocked at the uses to which the bird 

 is put in rough bush cookery, where its virtues are held in small esteem. An 

 Irish recipe for cooking a snipe is merely to burn its bill in a candle, but 

 some Australian cooks go to the other extreme. One recipient of a present 

 of a few brace 'just fried them with steak.' The heresy as regards the 

 steak was bad enough, but such treatment of snipe was altogether unpardon- 

 able. The Argus snipe is a rare but rather beautiful bird, the markings on 

 its back and wings being exceptionally fine. Of Australian quail there are 

 at least a dozen varieties, ranging from a small partridge down to the little 

 king quail. In some parts of the colony, without the slightest efforts being 

 made at game preservation, enormous bags are frequently made. 



The Tiger-Snake. 



Amongst the game of southern forests the wonga-wonga and bronze- 

 wing pigeons are two really splendid birds, the latter as large as an ordinary 

 blue-rock, and the former making all varieties of the pigeon tribe look like 

 mere dwarfs beside them. They keep closely to the thickets. It requires a 

 quick eye to detect them. 



Snakes are often considered a drawback in Australia, but then it must 

 be remembered that a man may live ten years in a snaky part of the country 

 and never see one of these reptiles. Now that rational ideas of treatment 

 are gaining ground, death from snake-bites will not average above one per 

 million of the population per annum. 



The most vicious as well as the most dangerous of these reptiles is the 

 tiger-snake, so called from its tawny, cross-banded colouring. Like its near 

 ally, the cobra di capello of India, when irritated it flattens and extends its 



