Station Work 33 



loaded upon waggons and conveyed to the nearest 

 railway-station; or to a river-staging, where they 

 are piled upon a barge, which is towed by a little 

 .side-wheel steamer down to the river Murray. 



The shorn sheep are counted and branded, and 

 in many cases dipped to prevent their picking up 

 tick and other parasites. Then they are drafted 

 into classes and moved to the paddocks, where 

 they remain until the time comes when another 

 crop of wool has to be shorn from them. By the 

 counting of the sheep, the owner is able to com- 

 pare the numbers of his flock with those ascer- 

 tained at the previous shearing, and so to estimate 

 their rate of increase, or, as the case has too often 

 been of late years, their rate of decrease. The 

 end of the shearing is usually celebrated by an 

 entertainment, consisting of athletic sports, races 

 of the shearers' horses in the afternoon, and a 

 concert in the wool-shed in the evening. The 

 concert usually takes the form of a burnt-cork en- 

 tertainment with a number of highly original and 

 diverting turns thrown in. Some of the shearers 

 are masters of most curious accomplishments, such 

 as axe-swinging and bell-ringing. I once heard 

 a man play a number of tunes upon a row of 

 billy-cans of different sizes, each containing a cer- 

 tain quantity of water, the notes being sounded 

 by tapping the cans with a small wooden hammer. 

 An invariable feature of these entertainments is a 

 collection, the proceeds being devoted to the bene- 

 fit of the nearest hospital, and the shearer, flush 



