80 BUSH DAYS 



frog all gleaming green and yellow? I do not. And these 

 paddocks of ours were full of the little creatures, which darted 

 up every few yards and hopped away, looking at us with bright, 

 black eyes, or slipping quickly into the grass, where they were 

 lost from sight at once. The grass itself was in flower, and 

 the scent of its tiny blooms filled the sunny day. Here and 

 there a small bright blossom showed against the green a tiny 

 yellow pea, or a wee pink star but mostly it was just the 

 flower of the grass itself, pale green or dull purple, which gave 

 the autumn bloom to the paddocks. And over the grass, as if 

 in love with the humble flowers, flittered and fluttered the 

 butterflies. Of every shade and size they were the big 

 " wanderer " of brilliant orange-brown, who loves all lands ; 

 the little one of pure gold, which looked like an embodied sun- 

 beam as it skimmed across the paddocks ; the tiny one of pale 

 mauve, which hung to the grass stalks like a sweet, frail violet ; 

 and the one of purest white, which hovered here and there 

 across the grass, then fluttered off up the wind like a wander- 

 ing thought. 



Frogs and butterflies may seem a world apart, but out on 

 those scented paddocks in the sun and the breeze, they came 

 together as parts of the beautiful whole. 



The waves boomed louder as we went forward, for now the 

 paddocks were curving out to the white beaches. The fences, 

 which stretched in soft dull lines across the green, were grow- 

 ing fewer, and the last boundary was a running stream, which 



