THE WILDERNESS 31 



rank vegetation, and through evergreen cur- 

 tains peep the herons and the egrets which 

 Audubon described so well a hundred years 

 ago, but which, alas ! have been so ruthlessly 

 destroyed by those who trade in feathers that 

 the well-meant efforts of American societies 

 organised for their protection come too late. 

 Here also are bears and jaguars, though I did 

 not, even in the wildest nooks of the Ever- 

 glades, get a glimpse of either. Here, in the 

 silent swamps, we used to dig out alligators 

 amid the music of mocking-birds and the piping 

 of quails, looking up from our labours at the 

 heavy flight of pelicans and turkey-buzzards 

 over the beaches and the more graceful soar- 

 ing of fish - hawks out over the teeming 

 waters. 



Very similar, and to the careless eye identical, 

 are the mangrove swamps of tropical Queens- 

 land. Here, however, we knew that there was 

 no wild creature fiercer than the native "cat," 

 little more formidable than our English weasel. 

 The animals most conspicuous out on the burn- 

 ing plains behind the mangroves were the kan- 

 garoos and wallabies, grotesque objects which, 

 bounding out of reach of gun or rifle, look as 

 if, embalmed in the Australian bush, they are 

 survivals from some antique period before the 

 dawn of history. The wooded tracts of tropical 

 Queensland, as far north as Albany Pass and 



