CREATURES OF THE BUSH.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13479, 26 July 1912, Page 2

CREATURES OF THE BUSH.

Lie down quite still in the bush on a fine warm day (writes H.V.E. in the Sydney "Mail"), and it is wonderful how many of the wild creatures will come to inspect the strange monster which has—uninvited —invaded their domains.' The übiquitous and fussy blank ant is usually the first to arrive — sometimes in legions, if the nest is near by—and is only content when it has made an extended tour of one's body and limbs. It1 is merely in search of provender, but the aggressive bulldog has no such peaceful intentions. If he happens on bare flesh he will promptly insert his sting, and loaves a dull, heavy pain behind. A rabbit darts out of its burrow and sits a few feet away

with wide, enquiring oyes, until its curiosity is satisfied, wlien bunny whisks back into the Cimmerian darkness of his abode, and won't come out again till near sundown. A kit-e sailing high in the air spies tho strange object from above, and in a series of concentric circles descends to a tre-e overhead, whence it takes stock of the intruder, while a couple of inquisitive soldier-birds chatter in the lower branches. A black snake—the waterhunting porphanais, beautiful in its way, but carrying the seeds of death in its slender jaws—glides by, stopping for a moment of two with that graceful head held a few inches above the ground, tenso and -motionless. Then it continues its journoy to tho creek near by, in search of frogs. "Were it a tiger snake of any size, let tho supine student of nature bcwaro, for tho most vicious of Australian snakes loves battle, and will often attack without provocation, with head and neck puffed out like the deadly cobra, of India. Tho blue-tongued lizard is another reptile of curious, nature, and one of those crawls slowly round the stranger, hissing at intervals. J Then a bandicoot comes out of a clump of rood grass and ambles by, with its snout close to the ground, in search of edible roots. On other occasions the list of furred, feathered and scaled visitors may be varied; but it will under such circumstances usually be considerable and always interesting.