are
beeches (called birches), and various species of pines. The strange
marsupials, the snakes, the great running birds, the wild dogs
of Australia, have no counterpart in New Zealand. The climate
of Australia, south of Capricorn, is, except on the eastern and
south-eastern coast, as hot and dry as the South African. And the
Australian mountains, moderate in height and flattened, as a rule, at
the summit, remind one not a little of the table-topped elevations so
familiar to riders on the veldt and karroo. The western coast of New
Zealand is one of the rainiest parts of the Empire. Even the drier
east coast only now and then suffers from drought On the west coast
the thermometer seldom rises above 75 deg. in the shade; on the other not
often above 90 deg.. New Zealand, too, is a land of cliffs, ridges, peaks,
and cones. Some of the loftier volcanoes are still active, and the
vapour of their craters mounts skyward above white fields of eternal
snow. The whole length of the South Island is ridged by Alpine ranges,
which, though not quite equal in height to the giants of Switzerland,
do not lose by comparison with the finest of the Pyrenees.

No man with an eye for the beautiful or the novel would call Australia
either unlovely or dull. It is not, however, a land of sharp and
sudden contrasts: New Zealand is.

The Australian woods, too, are park-like: their trees, though
interesting, and by no means without charm, have a strong family
likeness. Their prevailing colours are yellow, brown, light green, and
grey. Light and heat penetrate them everywhere.

The cool, noiseless forests of New Zealand are deep jungles, giant
thickets, like those tropic labyrinths where traveller and hunter have
to cut their path through tangled bushes and interlacing creepers.
Their general hue is not light but dark green, relieved, it is true,
by soft fern fronds, light-tinted shrubs, and crimson or snow-white
flowers. Still the tone is somewhat sombre, and would be more
noticeably so but for the prevalent sunshine and the great variety of
species of trees and ferns growing side by side. The distinction of
the forest scenery may be summed up best in the words dignity and
luxuriance. The tall trees grow close together. For the most part
their leaves are small, but their close neighbourhood hinders this
from spoiling the effect. The eye wanders over swell after swell, and
into cavern after cavern of unbroken foliage. To the botanist who
enters