vided with serpents--rather too well
provided--and the Bush child has to be careful in regard to putting his
hand into rabbit burrows or walking barefoot, as there are several
varieties of venomous snake. But the snakes are not at all the great
danger that some imagine. You might live all your life in Australia and
never see one; but in a few country parts it has been found necessary to
enclose the homesteads on the stations with snake-proof wire-fencing, so
as to make some place of safety in which young children may play. The
most venomous of Australian snakes are the death-adder, fortunately a
very sluggish variety; the tiger-snake, a most fierce serpent, which,
unlike other snakes, will actually turn and pursue a man if it is
wounded or angered; the black snake, a handsome creature with a vivid
scarlet belly; and the whip-snake, a long, thin reptile, which may be
easily mistaken for a bit of stick, and is sometimes picked up by
children. But no Australian snake is as deadly as the Indian jungle
snakes, and it is said that the bite of no Australian snake can cause
death if the bite has been given through any cloth. So the only real
danger is in walking through the Bush barefooted, or putting the hand
into holes where snakes may be lurking.

Some of the non-venomous snakes of Australia are very handsome, the
green tree-snake and the carpet-snake (a species of python) for
examples. The carpet-snake is occasionally kept in the house or in the
barn to destroy mice and other small vermin.

Lizards in great variety are found in Australia, the chief being one
incorrectly called an iguana, which colloquial slang has changed to
'goanna. The 'goanna is an altogether repulsive creature. It feasts on
carrion, on the eggs of birds, on birds themselves, on the young of any
creature. Growing to a great size--I have seen one 9 feet long and as
thick in the body as a small dog--the 'goanna looks very dangerous, and
it will bite a man when cornered. Though not venomous in the strict
sense of the word, the 'goanna's bite generally causes a festering wound
on account of the loathsome habits of the creature. The Jew-lizard and
the devil-lizard are two other horrid-looking denizens of the Australian
forest, but in their cases an evil character does not match an evil
face, for they are quite harmless.

Spiders are common, but there is, so far as I know, only one dangerous
one--a little black spider with a red spot on its back. Large spide