MESSIEURS LES KOOKABURRAS."

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 800, 25 April 1910, Page 3

MESSIEURS LES KOOKABURRAS."

Madame Calve, who is a keen lover of Nature, had her first experience of the Australian bush on Saturday, April ft, when she, in company with a number of. friends, went for a picnic to Ferntree Gully (says the Melbourne "Age"). Tho famous singer expressed herself as charmccl with the scenery. The beauty of the ferntree bowers, the tall gum-trees, and their accessories of evergreen scrub and. creepers, proved a source of constant dplight, and evoked many quaint expressions of joy and surprise couched. in most amusing phrases, half-l-'rench, half-linglish. She sipped' her initial pannikin of "billy tea" in true bushman fashion, seated on the ground under tho shade of the ferntrees. When tho . laughing jackass awoke the echoes she clapped her hands with delight, exclaiming, "Monsieur le Kookaburra est itres joli. .1 ' must have him in my chateau. Your coo-ee, too, I can do it." Then her clear voice rang out a coo-ee that many as Australian would have envied. Madame Calve's opinion of. tho country was that it was most beautiful and mysterious, and unlike anything elso she had seen in her travels. She paid a visit to a settler's tent, made friends with the children, and left them happy 'with cake and fruit sandwiched, in between kisses. On returning to Melbourne, Madame Calve announced that she intended before she departed from Australia to have many more picnics with billy tea in the bush in tho company, of; Messieurs les Kookaburras.