Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/349

 the fox, has found the climate suit his constitution. He raids the good-wife's turkeys, not wholly neglecting lambs, much as he might have done in the midland counties of England. Charles Kingsley's father (he tells us) took him into the garden one night to hear a fox bark, believing that the breed would soon be extinct in England; but he has held his own so far in the old country, and as I was told of a vixen with six cubs discovered in a log at Snaky Creek last week, I doubt whether we should not be able to re-export him, like the hares and rabbits, if a demand sprang up for the Australian Reynard.

Squattlesea Mere was certainly a good place for game. Snipe were plentiful, and might be shot, so to speak, from the parlour window. Wild ducks, geese, turkeys, quail, and the beautiful bronze-wing pigeon also. The kangaroo was then in the land, and helped our larder (notably with his tail, which made excellent soup), and an occasional dish of steak or hashed wallaby. The flesh tasted something between lean beef and veal, not at all a bad substitute for salt junk, when well cooked. A couple of hundred rabbits at least must have crossed the road, running eastward, in two or three miles, as we drove along this morning.

How such a sight would have astonished us formerly! Hares, too, from time to time. Our kangaroo dogs were then nearly as fast as the pure greyhounds now so plentiful on every estate, and what good sport we should have had! Driving by coach between the towns of Hamilton and Macarthur, I observed with satisfaction that the old stations survived in the form of respectable, though not overgrown, freehold estates. And although the owners are no longer the same, they still bear their old names, and are thus distinguished from the smaller-sized arable and grazing farms which have occupied the remaining areas.

'Monivae' (the first in order along the Macarthur road), from which I have more than once seen Acheson Ffrench driving his four-in-hand, now boasts a mansion and excellent fencing. The old cottage, however, yet stands, surrounded by the station buildings, where the merry girls and boys grew up, and where we used to be glad to be asked to stop for a night in the 'dear dead days beyond recall.' Werongurt too, where John Cox held sway, where the first orchard was