4 BUSH DAYS 



Besides, there is so much else for you to admire. When 

 you have rested for an hour beneath the red gums you will 

 want to find fresh wonders in this happy corner, and if you 

 stroll along the sun-decked slope you will not want in vain. 

 No longer now must your eyelids droop, for there is much to 

 be seen. A brown and golden butterfly will show you the way, 

 and if you follow him he may lead you, as he led me, straight 

 to the foot of a tall peppermint, where on a leaning branch a 

 mother morepork sits cuddling tw r o fluffy big-eyed babies. 

 And if these babies gaze down at you with their great, round, 

 yellow eyes, and open their wide, pink mouths at you, as they 

 did at me, you will see a sight that will set you gurgling with 

 amusement. Or perhaps that butterfly will not show you the 

 morepork's family, but will lead you further on to where a 

 kookaburra has built his house in a knobby ant's nest. And 

 if you wait and watch a little while, you may see as I did 

 Mr. Kookaburra fly up to a neighbouring branch, and call 

 " Kook-kook," and then Mrs. Kookaburra put her white face 

 out of the door to ask what he wants. Or you may see her 

 fly out and go off for a spell, while her lord and master takes 

 his turn at the domestic duties. 



If you are not lucky enough as I was to see either more- 

 pork or kookaburra's nest, perhaps that wandering butterfly 

 will lead you to the tree where a crow has just brought out her 

 noisy family. Or perhaps you may miss all -three, and find 

 yourself in the creek bed, where the sassafras and pittosporums 



