A QUEER COUNTRY. 349

often called the water-mole. It has a bill, as I said, but then, it is
not as with a bird, a part of the skel-
eton, for it is only attached to the skin
‘and muscles. It is a kind of cheat
that it hangs out. It can swim and
dive like a duck, or it can climb a
tree. It burrows under ground and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“sometimes for twenty or thirty feet,
the door being under water, and the
chamber for its nest is high up above
the water. A queer fellow and a cun-

 

ning one, too! Then we have a
big lizard down this way, the iguana.
I have shot ’em five feet long,

 

 

HAMMOCK-BIRD.

and in Queensland there are alligators. We have bats, a creature
familiar to you, parrots, eagles, magpies and so on. You ought to see
our lyre-bird — or lyre-
pheasant — and it is so-

 

called, because its  tail-
feathers spread in the
form of a lyre. We have
plenty of snakes, and can

 

furnish any quantity of
insects. Our ants, we

 

think, are remarkable,
some being an inch long.

 

For an ant, the bull-ant

A BIG BIRD STALKING TOWARD HIM.

; is tremendous.
“We have not been satisfied, though, with what Australia can furnish,
and that alone, for we have been introducing foreign favorites — pigs,