t of the
domestic tragedy in bird life.

I had to hear the stingless little native bees humming before I could
see them; and as to knowing which tree had honey in it, unless I saw
the bees, that was quite beyond me, while a mere toddler would point
triumphantly to a 'sugar-bag' tree, recognising it as such by the wax
on its fork, black before rain, yellowish afterwards.

This honey is good strained, but as the blacks get it, it is all mixed
up with dirty wax and dead bees.

I deplored the sacrifice of the bees one day, but was told it was all
right. Whoever had chopped the nest out would take home the waxy stick
they had used to help get the honey out; they would throw the stick in
the fire, then all the dead bees would go to a paradise in the skies,
whence next season they would send Yarragerh Mayrah, the Spring Wind,
to blow the flowers open, and then down they would come to earth again.
One year the manna just streamed down the Coolabah and Bibbil trees; it
ran down like liquid honey, crystallising where it dropped.

The old blacks said, 'It is a drought now, but it will be worse. Byamee
has sent the manna by the little Dulloorah birds and the black ants,
because there will be no flowers for the bees to get honey from, so he
has sent this manna.' Each time he has done so, a great drought has
followed, and indeed it was followed by one of the worst droughts
Australia has ever known. Byamee, it is said, first sent them the manna
because their children were crying for honey, of which there was none
except in the trees that Byamee, when on earth, had marked for his own.
The women had murmured that they were not allowed to get this; but the
men were firm, and would neither touch it nor let them touch it, which
so pleased Byamee that he sent the manna, and said he always would when
a long drought threatened.

A great chorus of 'My Jerhs' would tell something was sighted.

It might be the track of a piggiebillah porcupine. This track was
followed to a hollow log; then came the difficulty, how to get it out,
for porcupines cling tightly with their sharp claws, and all a dog can
do where a piggiebillah is concerned is to bark, their spines are too
much to tackle at close quarters. But the old gins are equal to the
occasion: a tomahawk to chop the log, and a yam-stick to dislodge the
porcupine, who takes a good deal of killing before he is vanquished.

They say a fully initiated man can sing a charm which will make a
p