THE DAYBREAK FUGUE 99 



mountain parrot (red-collared lorikeet), the red-winged 

 lory, the black cockatoo (Leach's), and other well-known 

 species, fleet and venturesome, to whom two miles and a 

 half of " salt, estranging sea " cannot be any check, cer- 

 tainly do not use the island for nesting as birds of 

 " innocent and quiet minds " might. Gauze-winged butter- 

 flies flit across the channel, occasionally in great numbers. 

 What law restrains virile birds from the venture ? 



The absence among the residents of swimming birds, 

 save the beach frequenters, is due to the lack of open fresh 

 water, though there are indications of the past existence of 

 at least one swamp, and also that it was drained naturally 

 by the fretting away of a sand ridge by the sea. 



How is it, that though we have echidna in three 

 different colours black, grey and straw there is no typical 

 marsupial, large or small, no iguana (rather, monitor lizard), 

 though a fair variety of other reptiles, from white, house- 

 haunting geckoes to carpet snakes? Though the Cycas 

 media is plentiful on the seaward slopes of the adjacent 

 mainland, no trace of that interesting old-world plant has 

 been discovered here ; and but one casual representative 

 has been found of the graceful fan palm (Licuala Miillert), 

 another relic of the far beginning of Australia. No doubt 

 the seed whence the single fan palm sprung would be 

 brought hither by a nutmeg pigeon ; but there is no bird- 

 carrier for the Cycad, and the set of the current is opposed 

 to its transport by the sea. 



In birds and in mammals and in plants, wide-spread 

 Australian groups are unrepresented. 



THE DAYBREAK FUGUE 



Before there is any visible sign of the break of day, some 

 keener and finer perception than man possesses reveals it 

 to the noisy pitta, or dragoon bird, which in duty bound 

 makes prompt proclamation. Man trusts to mechanism to 

 check off the watches of the night ; birds to a self-contained 

 grace more sensitive if not so viciously exact. The noisy 



