seize the booty." It needs no great stretch of
fancy to picture the Doctor, bereaved of his gizzard, sitting
open-mouthed and aghast at the foot of a gum-tree, his fingers still
shining from the unctuous contact, the moisture of anticipation oozing
from his lips, his eyes watching the flight of the felon kite, whilst
the 'possum on the branch above grins at his mishap. The loss was the
more serious, that game was not abundant just then. They had got into
a flat, sandy, uninteresting country; all box-trees and ant-hills, as
Australian Charley described it, with no cover, and nothing to shoot
at. Bad enough for the sportsman, but highly eligible squatting
ground, where the settler would have few trees to fell and abundant
grass for his cattle. As for the game, it came in tracts and
districts. Sometimes they thought themselves fortunate could they
secure a few pigeons, at others, they revelled in pinguid
plenty,--kangaroos roasted whole, fat ibis, flying foxes in scores,
and ducks by the dozen. The atmosphere of these latitudes must be
particularly favourable to the appetite, judging from the following
passage.--"Charley Brown and John, who had been left at the lagoon to
shoot waterfowl, returned with twenty ducks for luncheon, and went out
again during the afternoon to procure more for dinner and breakfast.
They succeeded in shooting thirty-one ducks and two geese; so that we
had fifty-one ducks and two geese for the three meals; and they were
all eaten, with the exception of a few bony remains, which some of the
party carried to the next camp. If we had had a hundred ducks, they
would have been eaten quite as readily, if such an extravagant feast
had been permitted." A century of the web-footed for one day's
consumption! And they were seven--no more! Surely this was playing at
ducks and drakes with their resources. Fourteen ducks, a leg, a wing,
and a bit of the breast, entombed, within twenty-four hours, in the
stomach of each of these seven men! The very feathers in their pillows
(had they had any) would have cried out against such voracity. Truly
it is without a spark of compassion that we read of their reduction,
precisely one week afterwards, to short and less palatable commons.
"Oct. 26. We enjoyed most gratefully our two wallabies, which were
stewed, and to which I had added some green hide, to render the broth
more substantial. This hide was _almost five months old_, and had
served as a case to my botanical colle