while she indulges in all manner of airs and graces, pretends to be
very coy, and acts the coquette to perfection. But her lover's
devotion conquers at last, and in due time the fair flirt surrenders,
yields up her liberty and settles down as a dutiful wife and loving
mother, bringing up a family of sons and daughters, and no doubt duly
instructing them in the part they in their turn are to take in life's
drama. The black swans are not prettier than white ones, but they are
rarer, and when both are floating together over the smooth surface of
those lovely Australian lakes they present a picture of which one
never wearies, see it as often as one may.

[Illustration: FOREST OF FERNS.]

The count de Beauvoir, in describing a hunt of several days, speaks
with enthusiasm of the flocks of wild-turkeys and blue cranes, but
bewails his ill-success in running down the huge emus that stalked
before the hunters faster than their horses could gallop. He
describes also a kangaroo-hunt, and a single combat with an old
kangaroo, grizzled and gray, that in a hand-to-hand fight for a long
time parried all the hunter's efforts to take him, either living or
dead. He was brought down at last by a revolver, and his skin was
carried off as a trophy of victory. The cattle-hunt was even more
exciting, in the wild flight of four or five thousand terrified
beeves, rushing pell-mell through the tall grass or over sandy plains,
stopping occasionally to hide their terrified faces from the dangers
that beset them, but one occasionally succumbing to the trusty weapons
of the count and his comrades. The hunters were certainly not
encumbered with superfluous garments, several of the boys being
clothed only in a pair of boots, and none with more than a single
garment. The immense droves of cattle and sheep herded together in