224 NATURAL HISTORY SKETCHES. 



North American lumberer. Here the wood-cutter is 

 always dry, and his life is a healthy one ; whereas pre- 

 mature old age and shortness of days are the inevitable 

 fate of the timber-lumberer on the banks of the American 

 rivers. Cutting firewood along the coast used to give 

 employment to many. But, I believe, no timber must 

 now be cut w r ithin a mile of the beach ; and it won't pay 

 for cutting at any distance, unless there is water carriage 

 to Melbourne. The wood must soon become very scarce 

 around the towns. 



The wattle is a pretty, light-looking, flowering shrub, 

 in some places growing to good-sized trees, but generally 

 tall shrubs ; and the wattle-poles are used for a variety 

 of purposes. The bark is much sought after for tanning ; 

 and gathering -wattle-bark, in places where the trees 

 stood thick, paid well at one time. As the tree dies 

 directly the bark is stripped, we rarely now see a wattle- 

 tree of any size in the forests where the bark-peelers 

 haye been at work. 



The honeysuckle is certainly the most worthless tree 

 in the forest, and I think one of the ugliest. The wood 

 is spongy and soon rots ; there is nothing handsome 

 either in the shape or foliage of the tree, the branches 

 being crooked and ragged, and one half of them generally 

 rotten. The wood is no good, even for burning, as it 

 holds no heat. In autumn the trees are covered with 

 Jarge cones, which, when flowering, are clothed with a 

 yeUow down, filled with sweet pollen, and on this account 

 tljs honey-eating birds much frequent the honeysuckles. 



