THE PASSING OF THE GULLY 25 



clematis creeps, snowy white, over the old logs, and how the 

 purple hardenbergia and the creamy tecorria drape the tree- 

 trunks. You have seen the saplings' tips glow red in the young 

 year, and the big trees' trunks gleam rosy pink and tender grey 

 in their new season's dresses. You have not forgotten, have you. 

 how the native canaries build their hanging nests in the sapling 

 clumps; how the tits and diamond-dicks feed in their leaves? 

 You have not forgotten the yellow bobs and Jacky Winters, the 

 honey-eaters and thickheads, the fantails and shrike-tits, and 

 all the other dear, soft things that sang amongst the trees 

 and built their nests and brought out their small families ? 

 And, if you have ever seen them, you must remember the 

 flittering blue butterflies and those of yellow hue which turned 

 the grassplot to a field of gold. 



If you have known my gully with its thousand treasures, 

 you must have loved it, and will carry its sweet memory with 

 you for many a day to come. And so you will weep with me, 

 when I tell you that the days of my gully are numbered. All 

 these years it has lived untouched by the hand of man ; the 

 outskirts of civilisation have crept to its borders here and there, 

 but the gully itself has been left undisturbed, a sanctuary for 

 the birds and blossoms and butterflies. Now, alas, the fiat has 

 gone forth, and very soon the sweet bird-songs will give way 

 to the raucous tones of the auctioneer, and hideous red-roofed 

 " villas " will blaze where all was once so green. 



Already the wreckers have begun their work. Last week 

 I saw them setting off to their hateful task, a little band of 



