are their notes in the bush just half an hour before sundown. The plumage of the bird is black and white, the feathers being a trifle fuller and more abundant than those of his English relations, though he does not carry his tail in their jaunty fashion; nor, as far as I am aware, is he of any use in augury.
Around and above the little inn, upon a steep bank, grew mahogany trees of a great size, easily distinguished from another kind of eucalyptic tree, commonly called in the colony the red gum, which in some points they resemble, by the peculiar growth of their bark, which is wreathed in curved lines about their trunks.
In this spot the word "creek" meant only a valley, at the bottom of which ran a stream where the landlady's little daughter told me that the emus had come to drink in one very dry season, when thirst conquered their shyness and their dread of venturing near men's habitations. A short distance beyond the creek we came upon a turn of the road to which a melancholy interest has been since attached, by the burning at that spot of four horses with their load of sandalwood in a February bushfire. In that month, which corresponds to August in the north, the dryness of the Western Australian forest has reached its culminating point, and the sight of trees on fire is so much of an every-day matter as to excite little attention, unless the conflagration should spread very much, so as to encroach upon sheep-runs or endanger homesteads.
Amongst the few exports from the colony sandalwood is one of the chief, and during part of the year heavy teams, high laden with precious logs, are continually
