THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 139' 



" Heard the hymns of night and morning, 

 Learned the psalms of solitudes, 

 Knew that God was very near them — felt 

 His presence in the woods ! " 



In' the ineffable Spirit of the Woods I hope to direct my hearers 

 in thought for a Httle through the blithe pathways of a great 

 western forest. But, alas ! how can one steal its beauty and put 

 it into words ? A person who has seen a Queensland forest 

 dressed in rich tropical verdancy, decked with waving palms and 

 flowering tree-orchids, thriving on the very humidity of their 

 situation, or has visited the everlasting forests of Victoria or 

 Tasmania, with giant trees and gullies giving off refreshing terres- 

 trial odours, and full of graceful tree ferns, will soon notice, if 

 observant, a very characteristic difference in a West Australian 

 forest, where everything is light, buoyant, balmy, and where the 

 very trees of the wood seem to rejoice. Nothing depresses ; 

 even the atmosphere seems the purest of the pure. But stilly 

 generally speaking, the colour of the forest, as a whole, does not 

 wear the vivid, animated tints of eastern woods, but has a calm 

 tone — deep, soft, subdued. 



The annual rainfall of the forest is about 45 inches ; yet with 

 that amount of moisture no humidity is present to irritate one or 

 to add to one's discomfort. Then, again, throughout the year the 

 mean temperature (58 degrees) is very regular, there being na 

 great extremes of heat or cold. The ways of biting frost are 

 unknown in the 



" Secret hollows dear to noontide dew ; " 



and it seldom is very oppressive 



" When fiery December sets foot in the forest." 



But the neighbourhood of the Cape Leeuwin district — the heel, so 

 to speak, of our great island-continent — by virtue of its position, 

 seems to be a vortex or meeting-place for the pent-up winter 

 storm winds of the Southern and South Indian Oceans, which 

 fiercely disturb the otherwise quiescent forest-clad country, where 



" The swift rains beat, and the thunders fleet 

 On the wings of the fiery gale. 

 And down in the glen of pool and fen 

 The wild gums whistle and wail." 



However, it is spring when we enter the forest, and " lo, the 

 winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on 

 the earth, and the singing of birds is come." But spring appears 

 a month later than on the eastern coast, judging by the flowering 

 of the acacias ; so, instead of 



"Yellow-haired September" 



