Ao account of the various native animals of Australis is apt to read something like a page out of the story of " wonderland, and it is almost neces-the outset, to state that this in no way the product of the writer's imagination, but s strictly trathfal account of a few of the cations creatores that live in the continent of the south. Otherwise, the reader who hears of acrow that is white, of a spider that eats grass, is likely to imagine that the writer is nvrely spinning some fanciful yarn for the parpose of deluding a credulous public, The native animals of Austral the most part, bear no resemblance to those known in other lands: they are of use for food, and they do not provi in their skins, fare, bones, feathers, articles of any considerable commercial value, Most of the larger animals many of the smaller ones, belong to the "pouched" animals, that is, animals that carry their young and suckle them in an external pouch attached to the front of the body. The best known of these, and the largest, the kangaroo, which may be passed over here without farther mention, at ite form and habits are known, i ngaroo. One of these was a kind of bippopotamas, and another of lion, A bippopotatnos, arrying one of its ugly offspring in pouch on its body, must have precented " sirgalarly ludicrous appearance.
One of the most remarkable of the pouch-beating animals now in existence is the water-mole, This create bill Li duck, and lays egge lik bird, bat it suckles young after the manner of the cat or the dog. It livex in burrow< in the banks of certain ereeke. To theee burrows, which are often as much as fifty fect in length, there are two entrances, one above and one below high water.mark. The two passages meet in little chamber where the egg hatched ud the young ones reared, The animals possess n0 exter bat they hare pouches on the inside of the checks where they store their food, They ave no teeth, but masticate their foot by grinding it between two fist horny plates, The milk upon which the mother feeds her young exodes from a bare patch of skin, and is licked off by her offspring.
In the Stiftekeller or monastic cellar of the Klosternburg, the ancient Angastinisn Monastery, near Vienna, there are also excellent wines and monster cask, while at Heilig-Kreaz, I believe, there is a big cask whereon is carved the scene of the Cracifixion. The mediaeval artiste who executed the work were probably unaffected by the modern Anglo-Saxon theory that there is @ necessary and close connexion between drink and the Evil One, STRANGE BIRDS ABD THEIR HANTS, Australia has over six hundred different species of birds, including swans which are black instead of white, and a gisnt kingfisher whose peculiar ory has earned for it the name of the Inughing jackass. The bower bird is so-called because the male builds bower, into which to invite his feathered wife. He la the priace of bird architects. His bower is about three feet in length and_made of intertwined twigs, and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.