76 A BUSH CALENDAR 



We were not the only ones in the gully; down in the clear- 

 ing, now vividly green, we came across a little family party, 

 father, mother, and three children, all busily employed picking 

 mushrooms. A full basket was the reward of their labour, 

 and they told us there were more further on across the paddock. 

 But though mushrooms have a charm of their own not to be 

 denied, their fascination was not strong enough to draw us 

 from the path which leads down by the fence, through the 

 sliprails, into the part where the tall bilackbutts grow. Up in 

 their high tops two butcher birds were calling to each other, 

 the rich contralto notes of the first bird answered in rippling 

 mezzo by his mate. The butcher birds are free from the 

 housekeeping cares which kept them down in the valleys 

 during the summer, ^and have come back to the ridge for the 

 winter ; and now every morning is made musical by their ring- 

 ing voices. Most of the birds have finished with family cares 

 for the season, and with the young ones launched on their 

 ways, the parent birds are taking it easy, and sing with a freer, 

 surer tone than has been heard since the nesting commenced. 

 The path beneath the blackbutts led us through into the rocky 

 scrub where the stunted apples and banksias grow in a thickly- 

 matted mass. The apple trees are covered with their fascin- 

 ating fruit ; the creamy blossom has vanished, and in its place 

 are those quaint brown seed-pods with their little caps, now 

 vividly red, which in a week or so will split up irrto three 

 sections and let the little seeds out. The banksias, too. 



