UNS 
THE GEELONG NATURALIST. 
air. Each day the sun rises in the hazy sky, and at evening sets like a 
ball of copper behind the hills. The scorching day is followed bya 
dewless night, and in the light of the moon the leaves of the forest 
glisten like so many blades of steel, and a dreary silence broods 
overall. A spark of fire sets the dry grass in a blaze and almost 
immediately the whole country is in flames. It gathers air as it 
Sweeps along, rushes with irresistible force across the plain, licks 
up the pools of the creeks, and whirls through the forest running 
up the stems of the mighty gums it leaves them charred and black- 
ened for 60 feet up. The smaller trees and shrubs are completely 
Swept away. It whirls on, driving before it clouds of smoke and 
sparks. The frightened animals flee before this awful hurricane of 
fire. Kangaroos and wallaby cross the ground in mighty bounds. 
Fear even makes the sluggish bear climb to the top-most branches 
of the biggest trees; above all cockatoos, parrots and other birds fly 
shrieking before the fire. 
Such is a bush-fire. And it leaves a blackened open forest the 
very picture of desolation. No bird is heard singing among those 
charred stumps; even the laughing jackass sits silent and dejected 
high up upon some tree that has been spared. 
Lite has almost to begin again in the lower vegetable kingdom. 
The forest has lost its saplings and must plantagain. It is wonder- 
ful, however, how soon life again appears; before many weeks are 
over the ground is once more clothed in ferns and grasses, whilst 
tiny gums and wattles begin to shoot up everywhere. 
As a conclusion let us try and draw another characteristic 
picture of our forests, but a more peaceful one. 
It is afternoon, and a native and his gin and child have just 
fixed on their night’s camping place in a beautiful glen among our 
virgin forests. The husband busies himself stripping the bark from 
some great stringy bark to form the customary lean-to. The wife 
is engaged making the fire and cooking the evening meal. The sun 
sinks, and in sinking, leaves the forest flooded with,a purple wave 
of marvellous beauty, and gives a solemn grandeur to the tall 
tapering gums. Soon the shadows deepen, and as they deepen the 
stems of the white gums stand out distinct and grey, giving a weird 
and unearthly aspect to the forest. No sound disturbs the stillness 
except the gentle winds causing the long hanging strips of dry bark 
to rustle against the trunks. As soon however as the moon peeps 
above the hills, the forest seems to awaken. Opossums come from 
their hollows and clamber about the branches, feeding on the 
leaves ; while one hears the weird half stifled shriek of the native 
bear, and the monotonous cry of the mo-poke. In the hollows the 
bull-frogs are keeping up their drum-like chorus; occasionally too 
one hears the long mournful whistle of the curlew, and the grating 
- ery of the night-jar. i 
Such are our forests— composed of trees which shed their bark 
and not their leaves; of gigantic evergreens which have little or no 
shade; of graceful Palm-like Ferns, and tall feathery Acacias, and 
inhabited by a class of animals stranger even than the plants. 
