A curious and indescribable wailing cry is heard in the air, singularly depressing in its effect, and a string of some dozen black cockatoos flit from tree to tree, the brilliant scarlet band on the tail of the male flashing as he alternately expands and contracts it, to keep his balance whilst extracting the sweets from the flowers of the 'Eucalypti'. Few things present so great a contrast as the cries of these two birds--of the same family, and so alike in everything but colour--and yet both are disagreeable: that of the white variety from its piercing harshness, and that of the black from an indefinable sensation of the approach of coming evil it carries with it--at least, such is the effect it always has upon me. On strolling to the paling and looking into the clearing--for although my gun is in my hand, it is loaded with ball cartridge, and I do not fire--the nimble little bandicoot scuttled away towards his hollow log, looking so uncommonly like a well-fattened rat, that I mentally wonder how I could ever have had the courage to eat one, and a flight of rainbow-hued Blue Mountain parrots, who have held their ground to the last, whirr up with a prodigious flapping of wings, and, alighting on a gum-tree, can be seen hanging about the blossoms, head downwards, sucking out the honey with their uncouth beaks and awkward little tongues, which seem but badly adapted to such a delicate task. But I find I am digressing terribly, and the gloomy winter days of England, which make the recollection of a bright tropical morning so agreeable a task to contemplate, must be my excuse.