A BUSH BREAKFAST 43 



they?" he asks in a loud, ringing voice, and his mate answers 

 quickly, " It's that couple again." 



" What-what-what-?c'/za/ are they doing?" he asks again, 

 and again his mate answers immediately, " Boiling a billy." 

 But Mr. Thrush does not seem to be satisfied, and he comes 

 nearer to see us better, and asks again and again, " What-what- 

 what-what are they doing?" At last his wife grows tired of 

 telling him " They're boiling a billy," and flies off to see about 

 her domestic duties. 



Then a sweet-voiced honey-eater flies up, crying, "Oh dear, 

 oh dear, oh dear," in a plaintive way ; but whether he is sad 

 at not being asked to breakfast, or merely disturbed by the 

 thrush's questions, we cannot quite decide. Of course a 

 yellow-bob comes to see what's happening, and he sits on the 

 tree overhead, gazes down at our breakfast with his big black 

 eyes, and then says, " Tschau, tschau," with a scornful tweak 

 of his tail. But he need not be so contemptuous of our humble 

 fare, for hard-boiled eggs have an ambrosial flavour with billy 

 tea; fresh crusty bread with hedge-plum jam is food- for 

 the gods, when blue orchids bend towards it ; and rosy apples 

 are a heavenly fruit when the sunbeams dance upon them 

 through a red gum's leaves. 



And so the little lizard thinks, who has crawled out of the 

 corner, and run across our green carpet to see what he can 

 find ; he thinks that even the core of an apple is worth waiting 

 a long time to get, and nibbles at it with evident approval. 



