South Australian Naturalist. 
Vol. VII. _ ADELAIDE, AUGUST, 1926. No. 4. 
OUT OF DOORS. 
By Agapetus. 
By kind permission of the proprietors of “The Saturday 
lournar. 
The excursions of the field naturalists provide a most delight- 
ful way of spending Saturday afternoons and public holidays. 
They appeal to so many different sides of human nature. The 
pure bracing air of the hills or the ozone-laden breezes from the 
sea serve to reinforce the bodily health, the unaccustomed sights 
and sounds of the country or the beach insensibly withdraw the 
mind from the cares and worry of the daily routine. The 
aesthetic sense, the love of beauty is gratified by the singular 
charm of the Adelaide hills, their pure clear outlines, their varied 
curves, the blues and purples of distant ridges, the greens, browns, 
and greys of the nearer view', the soft golden sunlight lighting up 
valley^ and slope with a radiance as of Paradise. Through the 
rents in the shifting veil of mist and the fleeting shadow^s of the 
driving clouds the parklike effects of scattered groups of weird 
but stately eucalypts, which have happily escaped the woodman’s 
axe, and the orchards and quaint old homesteads in the valleys 
near some winding brook or miniature lake, provide a rare feast 
for the eye of the artist or nature lover. The ear, too, is ravished 
with liquid gurgle of our magpie, the melody of the harmonious 
thrush, and the thin but sweet pipe of the reed warbler; and even 
the hoarse “caw^^ of the crow or the harsh scream of the cockatoo 
help by contrast to heighten the music of the feathered choir. 
Then there is that strange exhilarating scent of the Australian 
woods, which when brought home to the exile by the odour of 
a gumtree in a strange land or of a spring wattle, thrills with an 
