Part 17 (1/2)

A place along the flounces of the jungle, where the serrated leaves of the fern of God e, none is prettier than the love flight of the green and gold butterfly (ORNITHOPTERA CassANDRA) Hue ceree and assu traits, can hardly withhold attention from other and more ethereal creatures when they become subject to the divine passion All have their moments of bliss, and the butterfly--”the embodiment of pure felicity --happy in what it has and happier still in searching for so else”--reveals its ”love-sickness and pain” as the blooay and sportful existence

In the courtshi+p of this particular species the racefully and without hesitation submits to the spell He has flitted airily in the sunshi+ne, glorying in a livery of green and gold and black, has daintily sipped nectar frohest bloodwood in wild but idle ied by appearance alone he has chosen quite an unworthy bride She is er, darker and heavier, and has little of the colouring of her passionate wooer on her wings, though her body is decorated with unexpected red Her flight, ordinarily, is cumbersome and slow, and her demeanour pensive--almost prim She seems to be of a steady, s of her mate alone denotes quite a different ideal of life He is all alert, charged to the full with nervous energy--free, careless, inconsequent, but absolutely irresistible

When the pair htly turn to thoughts of love, he swoops i to enchant her with the display of his colours

She forthwith a flight, rising and falling with gentle, rhyth movements, har her coy contours she floats over the tree-tops, or descends a the ferns or bushes, past the blue berries of the native ginger, while with quaint courtliness he pays his compliments and bewilders by his audacity As the amorous dalliance proceeds, he flits in brilliant spirals round and before her, and again resuht, consonant with her e the dance she leads, he follows, blitheso work this aerial flirtation The bride alights a the red knobs of the us quiver as she sips, while her admirer poises a yard in the air above her, flashes hither and thither, briefly steadying his flight in positions whence all his loveliness ain a yard above her; gyrates with the air of a dandy of over-weening assurance, vanity, and pride; swoops until his wings in their down-strokes salute her; and then the dainty pair dance into the sunless le

It is all a vivid but soundless syhtly trills and passionate phrases

THE GREED OF THE SNAKE

In another place in these artless chronicles proof has been given of the fact that though serpents were long enough ago declared to be the most subtle of the beasts of the field, they may be ireed and their grasping nature

Our chicken coops were made snake-proof, but a lariously broke into one, and the hen and chickens sounded the alarht, and the lantern revealed the snake The affrighted chickens with their anxious parent issued forth as soon as the door was opened, all save two, one at each end of the snake A gunshot through the open door divided the snake When the coop was lifted away, each end retained tightly a dead chicken, one partially sed, the other throttled and held by three encircling coils of the tail Apart froic element in this case

When once it has firmly seized with its teeth its prey, a snake must shole or burst in the attee of rejection Now the chicks were several sizes too large for the snake, and consequently the sides of its th of about 4 inches, had been ripped in the vain endeavour to perform an impossibility

A SWALLOWING FEAT

Everyone knows that ss But is the way in which the feat is accoenerally understood? That is the question No doubt a big snake glides jauntily to a rips it with its in-curved teeth, the jaws loosen and begin their alternating moves passing down the throat That is easy

But how does a small snake, the neck of which is an inch and a half in circu 5 inches and more in circumference?

Actual observation enables htforwardly, the egg, presenting but little resistance, would be continuously pushed away The snake slides its head and neck over the egg, and pressing doard upon it with that part of its body which for the present purposeThe head turns over as if the snake was preparing for a so, the upper below and the lower above, and begin to work Presently the upper and lower jaws beco is encompassed and forced down into the throat

The process seereat is the distension of the flesh tissues and the skin that they beco When the egg is safe in the stoastric juices, and theA porcelain counterfeit, which the , passes on its way unblemished,

PART II

STONE AGE FOLKS

CHAPTER I

PassING AWAY

Soines of Australia cans and totemic ceremonies; others, that they are representatives of the Neolithic Age; others assert that Australia is the cradle of the human race, the pri

Without pausing to hazard an opinion upon any of these theories, it may be said that stone axes, shell knives, and fish-hooks of pearl and tortoiseshell now in use are a the credentials of a people whose attributes and conditions are in line with those who, in other parts of the world, had their day and fulfilled their destiny ages upon ages ago, leaving as history etchings on ivory of the mammoth and the bone of the reindeer Implements similar to those which are relics of a remote past elsewhere are here of everyday use and application The Stone Age still exists

To speculate upon those phases of aboriginal life and character which go to establish the antiquity of the race and its profound unprogressiveness, is no part of the present purpose, which is merely to relate commonplace incidents and the humours of to-day Much of that which follows is necessarilythose who have studied the blacks of the coast

There is nothing obscure, and but little that concerns even the immediate past, in the philosophy of those natives of North Queensland hom I am in touch With the black, to-day is--”to be, contents his natural desire!” The past is not worth thinking about, if not entirely forgotten; the future uneh a few years ago, are fast passing away New acquire proofs of the unfitness of the aboriginal for the battle of life when once his pri whites Bent wire represents a cheap and effective substitute for fish-hooks of pearl-shell, which cost so much in skill and time, and ever so shabby and worn a blanket more comfortable and to the purpose than the finest beaten out of the bark of a fig-tree

Many of the wants of the race are supplied through the agency of the whites, and there are so enerally to occupy attention, that the decent and often ingenious handicrafts lapse and are lost Our blacks still decorate rocks and the bark of trees with rude charcoal drawings; but the art of h trees yet exhibit eneration

In passing, an example of the difficulties that must inevitably be faced by inquirers a few years hence who randfathers of the blacks of Hinchinbrook Island and the islands of Rockingha out-rigger canoes, such as were co representative of the race gave me a detailed description of this style of canoe, and pointed out with pride the particular tree whence it was invariably fashi+oned, by hollowing out a section of the trunk, leaving the ends solid and shaping the to hier This boy had travelled He had seen the canoes further north as well as those of New Guinea, and it was found on investigation that his description of the local craft was quite i, who ca at Goold Island, thus describes the canoe of the period--”Their canoes were not enerally too small for two people; two small strips of bark five or six inches square serves the darkie's purpose of paddling and for baling the water out, which they are constantly obliged to do to prevent their canoes fro” These details are applicable to the canoes of the present day