24 MATESHIP WITH BIRDS 



almond tree with other cultivated blooms, and quite 

 a different matter to compare it with Australia's 

 lilies of the field, the flowers of the bush. In the 

 heart of every lover of nature these have a place 

 apart. It may be that they do not coincide with 

 what W. H. Hudson has called the "largeness" of 

 the Spring mood as definitely as do, say, the gipsy 

 voices of the Cuckoos ; but, being of the earth with- 

 out "earthiness," as we usually accept the term, 

 they express the spirit of the waking bushland as 

 not even the birds can. Without straining at a 

 fancy, one may say the bush-flowers are the smile 

 of the earth, which smile persuades the air to laugh- 

 ter, expressed in the songs of mating birds. Nina 

 Murdoch, the New South Wales girl-singer, knows 

 them both. In verse as delicate as Brereton's 

 (earlier quoted) is dancing, she offers us a Perdita- 

 gift of "orchids, green, and mauve, and white," and 

 then tells of the bringer of this dainty posy: 



Oh! it is August, singing by the creek, 

 And flitting to and fro upon the heath, 



With busy fingers and bewitching ways 

 Of darting here and there at hide and seek 

 To please her babe, the Spring, who underneath 



A leafy shelter with a wild flower plays. 



It is to these little terrestrial orchids, chiefly 

 members of the genus Glossodia, that the thoughts 

 of lovers of Southern bush-flowers must go back in 

 after years go back with all the affection of a 

 Briton for the primrose by the river's brink. Their 

 rank, wildwood fragrance is potent to revive old 

 memories, no less than their peculiarly human-like, 

 sympathetic little "eyes." I think particularly in 

 this connection of the blue (or mauve) Glossodia 



