228 NATUBAL HISTOKT SKETCHES. 



is the contrast so apparent as in the winter. " Enter a 

 forest," as Inglis prettily observes, " when the sun breaks 

 from the mists of morning upon the dews of the past 

 night. Beautiful as is a forest in the spring, when the 

 trees unfold their virgin blossoms ; beautiful as it is in 

 the summer, when the wandering sunbeams, falling 

 through the foliage, chequer the mossy carpet beneath ; 

 beautiful as it is in autumn, when the painted leaves 

 hang frail ; it is more beautiful still when the tall pines 

 and gnarled oaks stand in the deep silence of a wintry 

 noon, their long arms and fantastic branches heaped 

 with the feathery burden which has never caught one 

 stain of earth." Such is a true picture of a northern 

 forest, which the Australian native has never witnessed ; 

 and although probably out of place here, it may serve to 

 remind more than one reader of many a distant scene, 

 which, however rude in comparison to the soft and sunny 

 landscape of the south, can never be fairly obliterated 

 from the mind of that man who, let him wander where 

 he will, still looks upon the land of his birth as his own 

 peculiar home. 



Notwithstanding its changeability, the climate of 

 Victoria must be as salubrious as in any part of the 

 world, or we could never lead the gipsy out-door life 

 we do here: in fact, as a modern writer truly says, 

 " the heat brings no fevers, the rain no agues, the cold 

 no consumptions : the rivers are not bordered by 

 miasma; the plains are bracing; the air pure; the 

 sky open, blue, and bright. The bush itself is freo 



