NATURE NOTES. 
26 
WILD LIFE IN TASMANIA. 
VI. 
T may readily be imagined that in a timbered country 
like this, there are several descriptions of what is 
technically known as “ bush.” For example, there is 
the “green bush,” the grand old primeval forest, stand- 
ing in all its silent majesty as it has stood, thousands of years. 
This description of bush, when rooted in good soil, is often fairl)' 
easy to travel in when one gets a little used to it, for, although 
there is plenty of timber, it is nearly all large, and one does not 
encounter the masses of small sticks which so frequently encum- 
ber the poorer soils. Then there is the “ bush ” which arises 
after a fire has devastated the country, and this is the worst of 
all to travel in ; the big timber which has been destroyed by the 
fire is replaced by an army of seedlings, which rapidly develop 
into saplings, and these so close together that nothing short of 
hacking one’s way with axe and slash-hook is of any avail to the 
explorer. The thistles and fireweed (the latter belonging to the 
groundsel family) are always the first plants to show up after a 
fire, and this will occur miles away in the bush, quite distant 
from any other plants of the kind. However, as the seeds are 
winged, and ^Hll fly a long distance before a good breeze, this 
may be accounted for ; it is not so easy to explain the fact that 
the seedling trees above referred to are often quite different to 
the trees that were growing there before the fire. The dogwood 
is one of the scrubs which arise in this wa)', often appearing in 
poor soil after a fire has passed over it and the original scrub has 
been scorched out of existence. 
The most open bush of all is on the plains, where the trees 
are much more scattered than in the good land, and of a more 
gnarled and stunted appearance, though often of a great size 
even here. The larger timber consists chiefly of peppermint 
gums, and the undergrowth of honeysuckle trees, he-oaks, gum 
saplings, small ti-tree, and various species of heath and rushes. 
The “ green bush,” the virgin forest as yet unmarred by the 
touch of man, is a land of beauty and delight such as can hardly 
be conceived. Scarcely ten minutes’ walk from the knoll on 
which our little cabin is perched, is a glade of lovely tree-ferns, 
where, seated on the trunk of some fallen tree, and shaded from 
the fierce rays of the sun by the long drooping fronds of the giant 
ferns, we may look into the face of Nature as we never could in 
a more civilised country. The ground beneath our feet is mossy 
and littered with dead leaves and twigs, and the log upon which 
we are seated has also a thick covering of green moss. 
The very trunks of the tree-ferns themselves are a study, 
for upon them is growing quite an assortment of delicate little 
mosses and ferns, which hang from the brown fibrous stem like 
hair from the back of some monstrous bear. For our fronded 
