by night, he makes his will."  The screech owl's
cry is still portentous in some ears. The sight
of a crow through a window in the morning is
still enough to deter some from going abroad,
even upon important business; and the words of
presage,
                          One, sorrow,
                          Two, mirth,
                          Three, a wedding,
                          Four, death,
are applied to the merry, inoffensive magpie.

Respect, and even worship, paid to birds, are
not peculiar, indeed, to any age, or to any race,
Said Ephrem the Syrian, as we read in the Latin
version, " Ubi aves, ibi angeli"— where birds are,
there angels are.  Before the Flood, birds were
classed as clean and unclean.  In the days of
the Ark, the omens of the raven and the dove
were watched and interpreted.  The famished
Elijah was sustained by the ministry of birds.
Particular birds have been in many countries the
objects of special worship, on account of some
property or quality which has rendered them fit
symbols of divine attributes. Thus the ibis was
worshipped in Egypt, as we learn from many
writers, and the reason given by a great number
is that of Herodotus, namely, that it fed upon
winged serpents which came out of Arabia in the
spring, though there are many and interesting
reasons against the possession of such an attribute
by this ancient bird. Storks are respected
in Holland and Germany, and accommodation
for them is provided upon the tops of houses,
to which they are supposed to bring good luck.
Marabout cranes are protected in India, and in
Egypt large bronze vases of food are placed
upon the roofs of certain ancient mosques for
the use of the birds. The Pondicherry vulture
is venerated in the East as the type of Vishnoo;
and a species of cuckoo, the Cuculus honoratus
of Linnæus, is so called from the honours it
receives.  In China, also, various birds are still
employed to distinguish the different grades of
mandarins, who are obliged by law to have their
particular bird embroidered on their breast.

The birds, therefore, have no cause for complaint.
Their reign has lasted longer than the
term of any human dynasty, and if they have not
in these days such absolute and widely-extended
sway as they possessed two or three thousand
years ago, they only share the fate of all power
and greatness in this world under the moon.

          THE BUNDLEMAN ON THE PLAINS.

A BUNDLEMAN, or foot traveller who carries
his bundle of blankets on his back, arrives
in the evening at a cattle station on the M.
river, in Australia.  Received by a chorus from
the dogs, he asks for the "cove," by which
he means the master, goes to him, and puts the
stereotyped question, " Please, sir, do you want
any hands?"  He is sent up to the men's hut,
with leave to stay the night.  There, after
supper, he "gets in a yarn" with the stockmen,
as they smoke their pipes outside the hut.

"How far might you call it from here to the B.
river, matey?"  "Oh, about seven-and-thirty
mile, for them as knows the bush, but you'll
have to put sixty or seventy more on to it if
you follows the rivers."  " What's the cove
like, down below?"  "A hungry beggar, as
grudges a man a pot of tea."  " Any water on
the plain?"  " Well, there ought to be enough
to camp on, in the dug hole, at the lake."
"There was a chap, up the river, as told me
that a dray come up here, straight across from
the dry lake, a month ago.  Could a man follow
the track?"  " Jim and me see the tracks plain
enough, a long way out, when we was after that
beast to kill, o' Wednesday; but you'd better
not let the cove see you a-going that way: he
kicked up row enough about the dray coming;
said they wanted to make a road across the run,
and we'd be havin' a flock of caterpillars (sheep)
comin' over next.  If you' re game to tackle the
plain, Jim here is goin' after the horses at daylight,
and he'll put you on the dray-track."

Daylight comes: a bright red dawn.  The
traveller is conveyed by Jim the stockman
through the low polygonum scrub that skirts
the river, and is shown the faint marks of a pair
of wheels.  These he is to follow for twenty
miles or so, when he will come to a beaten track,
near which he fully expects to find a little water.
He has a bit of "ration" with him, and thinks
he will camp at the dug hole that night, and go
on to the B. next day.  On that river, sheep
station huts are plentiful, and he need make no
more long marches.  He has his covered tin
pot, or " billy," in his hand; this holds a couple
of quarts of river water; but it is old and
battered, and leaks a little.  The great grey
plain is spread before him; the Fata Morgana is
brilliant this morning, as it often is in very hot
weather; and he sees the reversed images of
far distant sand-hills, pine ridges, and river
timber, refracted above the horizon, and flickerng
in the heat, radiated from the hot earth.
Then, up rises the great fiery sun, the heat
increases suddenly, the fantastic figures fade away,
the horizon seems to contract, and lies before
him as round and unbroken as that of the sea.

There is plenty of life here, near the river.
Great flights of cockatoos have posted their
yellow-crested sentries, and are busy digging
for their breakfasts.  Light clouds of white
dust rise far and near, where the cattle, which
are all in on the river now, are congregating
on their camps; they have been feeding during
the last three hours, and will lie all day, in
sleepy groups, upon the hot sand-hills, until in
the late afternoon the elders among them decide
that it is time to march, in long strings, to the
accustomed watering-place.  A dozen gaunt
black crows fly on before the traveller, mocking
him with their fiendish croaking, and wishing in
their hearts that evil may befal him, to the
end that they may pick his bones.  They know
that a man's skin is thinner than a bullock's,
and that, on such tender meat, their beaks
would have a fair chance against the wild dog's
teeth.  Presently, a kangaroo rat bolts out of a