paling at my bananas, doubtless apprised of their opportunity by the
evil-minded and malicious sow, took a mean advantage of the weakness of my
defences, and on the same night devoured everything in the garden that they
thought worthy of their attention.

Though I had now become hardened to the many injuries thus heaped upon me,
and had almost discontinued all attempts at cultivation, I still retained
the habit of stepping out into the verandah every morning with my gun, but
more with an eye to the pot than for any other reason.

Beautiful as the scene always was, it struck me that day as being of
unusual splendour. The tall gum-trees, with their naked stems, and curious
hanging leaves that exasperate the heated traveller by throwing the
scantiest of shadows, glistened dew-beaded in the rising sun. The laughing
jackass, perched upon a bare limb, was awaking the forest echoes with his
insane fits of laughter, alternating from a good-humoured chuckle to the
frenzied ravings of a despairing maniac. Suddenly ceasing, he would dart
down upon some hapless lizard, too early astir for its own safety, and,
with his writhing prey in his bill, would fly to some other branch, and
after swallowing his captive, burst forth into a yell of self-gratulation
even-more fiendish than before. The delicate little "paddy melon," a small
species of kangaroo, turned his gracefully-formed little head, beautiful as
a fawn's, and, startled at the strange figure in the verandah, stood
hesitatingly for a few seconds, and then, bending forward, bounded into the
scrub, the noise caused by the flapping of its tail being audible long
after the little animal itself was lost to sight. The white cockatoos,
alarmed by the outcry of the sentry -- for, like the English rooks, they
always tell off some of their number to keep a look-out -- who with
sulphur-coloured crest, erect and outstretched neck, kept up a constant cry
of warning, rose from the maize patch, the spotless white of their plumage