Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/249

220 he were absorbed in perpetual admiration of his little mate.

The nests which the swallows built under our eaves were made with an entrance shaped something like the neck of a bottle, and this peculiarity of architecture, together with the shortness of the bird's tail, were the only distinctions that we ever observed between the swallows of England and those of the southern hemisphere.

I have already mentioned the perplexity into which we were thrown by the ventriloquism of the frog, and the Bell-bird also seemed possessed with the same wish to conceal its individuality. The note of this bird was so exactly like the sound of the click of the capstan pawl in drawing up the anchor of a little yacht, that it not only made one long to set sail, but brought the sea-shore tantalizingly before the mind's eye, in the midst of the dry hot forest.

Often a loud screaming in the air would announce a flock of cockatoos, either white or black, flying overhead, and flights of wild fowl also would sometimes pass over the house, but amongst these last we could not enumerate the well-known black swan more than once or twice. The sable plumage of the Australian swan does not extend to the breast, which is covered with soft white down; but this is not a handsome contrast of colours, and gives the bird rather a magpie look, very different from the brilliant appearance afforded by the scarlet tail feathers of the black cockatoo when set off by the jetty hues of the body and breast. The white cockatoo lives chiefly upon roots, which Nature has enabled the bird to dig for in the driest weather, by furnishing him with