" SMILING MORN " 



" The light of the morning, 

 When the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds ; 

 As the tender grass springing out of the earth 

 By clear shining after rain." 



Holy Writ. 



A CLOUDLESS sky, the long grass wet with the night's 

 gentle shower, a thin veil of mist on the liills, a glassy, 

 steel-blue sea, the air saturated with the essences from 

 myriads of leaves and scented with the last whiffs from 

 the tea-trees and the primal blossoms of the wattles — 

 such are the features of this smiling morn, 



A spangled drongo — ardent lover of light and free 

 air — talkatively announced the dawn long before its 

 coming; the noisy pitta — bird of the moist soil and 

 leafy gloom — triumphs in three notes. For an hour 

 the scrub fowl have been violently noisy, but have 

 retired to the recesses of the jungle, whence comes an 

 occasional chuckle of satisfaction or a coarse, triumphant 

 crow. The fasciated honey-eater has loudly called 

 " with a voice that seemed the ver}'- sound of happiness " ; 

 the leaden flycatcher, often silent but seldom still, 

 has twittered and whispered plaintively; the sun-birds 

 are playing gymnastics among the lemon blossoms, 

 and the centre of activity for butterflies is the red- 

 flowered shrub bordering the wavering path. 



Since — sometimes wantonl}-, often thoughtlessly — 

 man interferes with plants, time out of mind the ban- 



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