THE TASMANIAN NATURALIST

and all three cuddled up closely toge-

ther. Overhead a long, dried frond
of the fet'n dropped, and little shafts
of sunlight filtered through the foli-
age above, touching the soft, downy
teuthers of the babies and warming
them. SittIng thus, they blended per-
factly into the coloring around them,
and only when they heanl the wel
('ume sound of H parent returning with
food. and little heads and yellow beaks
moved. could I see what they were.
\Vhen returning from a walk on the
Lietinnu 1';)1\<1 I heard the g song
of that shy little bird.
The Striated Freld Wren.
and found two parent birds feeding in
the grass close to the roadside, keepillg
under the shelter of some short brueken.
] noticed one would fly to the wooden
fence and beat a worm or grub until
only a small portion remained hangill;!
i\(lm its beak; and as [ conld henr tlw
chirping of a young bird, J then'
rr.ust be one close by. It was quitf-'
some time before I could locate it, hut
there it was upon; the lowest rung 'If
the fence, and ,"idently lIot too stead .....
OH its little legs, which were stretched
wide apart, giving it an absurd straddled
appearance, and with its tail (lown a:-1
tllough that might help to k2ep it
steady. But it looked as t11o'lgh
a slight puff of wind m'ght blow
it over. It chirped and chirped Hnd
opened its beak, and I hall now
too near for the parent and tht'\"
flew further down along the fence, OIl"
alighting upon the post tried to attrad
my attention away from their baby hy
Ringing mORt delightful1y its beautiful
litt[p :;ong of one tiny motif. Over and
again it sang its already perfected tune,
only pausing to take breath, its little
tail erect and head uplifted, its throat
swelling with song, in which it seemed
to delight. I'rhe mother bird flew through
to the other side of the fence, alighting
in a nice, grassy patch, uttering soft
calls to bring the young one to her,
after a few minutes the little thing evi-
dently realised this, and made quite a
strong flight to its mother, who at once
proceeded to feed it.
I often come upon these little birds
when walking quietly along near to
clumps of bracken; one will be perch-
ed upon a large bracken leaf, and the
other not far away on the tence, SIng-
ing their song to their hearts' content.
They can be heard at some dista.nce,
but it is difficult to locate them, as
they blend so perfectly into the color
of dead. bracken and are very shy.
I watch the bracken round, about,
and sometimes my patience is reward-
ed by seeing a !Slight movement as the
bird turns its head or flits to another
fern leaf.
[ sometimes hear "hem down neltr thE>
Willows, whose young, delicate tinted
leaves glisten in the sunlight after
rllin. and beautiful yellOW, golden yel-
low, buttercups stand upright above
their dark green foliage, and tiny wild
violets grow thickly upon the bank,
keeping c1O!'1e to their mother earth. In
this Quiet glade at the edge of the
dear. funning watel'S of the Little For
rester, overhead. in the tall trees wild
pigeons (bronzewlng). pa,rrots, and
other birds fly undisturbed, arid give
Quite El romantic finish to the charm of
the bush.
I1a M. Harri .
Some Notes on the " Watile " or " Acacia"
The word "wattle" iA one which wC'
in Australia have peculiarly adopted Cl"
our own. It dates from Anglo-Saxon
times and signifies twigs or saplings or
flexible rods plaited or interwoven to-
gether. The ,,",ork has come down to
modern days, and when early Rettlerfl
came to Australia they found it COIl-
yenient to construct the framework of
the wans of their dwe11inu:s and other
buildin,z:s of twigs and split sanlings: the
operation was called "wattling" and the
material used "wattle." Near Sydne;v
Coye there grew in abundance.
the water courses, a small tree with
small thin flexible stems, which waFl fre-
quently nsed for the pnrpose, nnd hr-ncE?
I
(14)
was ealled "wattle" or "black wattle."
Subseqnently other phmts which wc
now call acacias were used for the pur-
pose. aud these are recognised i'lS "wat-
tles" in most parts of this continent or'
Australia whether th(!ir stems and twigs
are used for wattling or not. The term
"wattle" is, however, by no means uni-
versally applied to plants of the genus
nearin, partirnlarly in the far western
nartfl of the State of New South 'Vales.
Myal!. Boree, Mulga, Brigalow, Cooba.
nead Finish. Gidp:e-e, Hickory,
PmbreIIa-bush. vVait-a-whiIe, and Yarran
all belong to the great wattle family.
The origin of the name acacia is not
absolutely free from doubt, but the most
to
THE TASMANIAN NATURALIST
reasonable derivation indicates that it
comes from the Greek, Akazo. I sharpen,
in allusion to the sharp spines of many of
the AfrIcan and Asiatic species which are,
however, not characteristic of most of
the Australian ones.
Acacias are found
Mainly in the -v.-armer Regions
of the earth, particularly Australia and
Africa; they aggregate nearly 500 species
for the whole world, of which consider-
ably over 300 afe found in Australia alone.
It will therefore he seen that acacia, or
as we call it "wattle" is mainly
tl'alian. The number of species can only
be stated approximately, as botanists COll-
tinue to discover additional ones.
Blossoms or Flowers.
The flowers of wattles fall into two
groups, those which have their flowers in
small round heads or fluffy balls, and
those in which the shape of the flowers
may be described as short blunt rods or
spikes; if you look at the blossom with
a pocket lens or magnifying glass, you
will observe that it consists of a very
large number of tiny flowers, forming in
fact, a colony of very small :fiowerettes,
whose structure, though minute, is as per
fect as that of any very large flower
growing in our gardens. The minute
flowers will be found to contain perfect
sepals, petals, and a large number of
stamens together with a pastil, the tiny
sepals and petals differ amongst themselves
in shape, texture, markings, in the
sence or absence of hairs, and as these
characters often determine the species, it
may be necessary for a botanist to ex-
amine minutely a plant submitted for his
opinion. The color of the flowers varies
from pure white to deep yellow, different
species showing flowers of varying shades
of cream color or pale yellow. They do
not show to advantage as cut flowers,
their exquisite flnffiness departing very
soon after being removed from the plant.
'NIost people are aware that the fruit
of the wattle is a pod of legume, which
althongh varying a good deal in share in
different species, bears a strong family
likeness to the homely pea or bean. it
therefore belongs to the natural order
leguminosoe. In some seasons the condi-
tions for forming pods are unfavorable
over very large areas, and we may
Look for Them in Vain,
but those of the ornamental wattles are
wen worthy of collection, as .these plants
are best propagated from seed. It may
be as well to mention here that the
outer coat of the wattle seed is very tough
and impervious to moisture, so that it
does not germinate very readily; there-
(15)
fore before sowing wattle seed it needs
to be soaked in hot, nearly boiling water,
or partly baked, an operation often per-
formed by bush fires, the seed will be in
dry grass land for many years, and as
soon as a fire passes Over the grass a
crop of young wattles is the result.
Most of the wattles have no leaves,
but only leaf .talks, whIch are flatten-
ed out, and have the appearance .of
leave8; they are called "Phyllodla,"
which is a word made up from two
Gl'ee,k ones, and means "like a leaf."
The feathery foIl ago of t.he black and
silver and Cootamundra wattles, which
are finely divided SD as to be almost
fern1ike, consists of true leawes. Many
of these Phyllodia ore almost endlpss in
d ivel'sity of appearance. The fea.thery
leaf wattles have a curious hab-it of
foldtng theIr leaves at night, and going
to sleep.
Wattles vary very much in size when
full grown. Some tIny species only
grow up to about six inches in height,
and may be crushed by walking over
it, but mOflt of them are shrubs or
trees of moderate size, while at least
two species reach the height of very
large trees, bDth of them being found
to measure up to ne,arly fDur feet in
diameter, a.nd some 100 and 150 feet in
height. I have seen silver wattles as
high as the gum trees, and ally thick
ness up to two feet or over; they grow
very tall and straight in forests near
rl vers and in gullies.
The wattle has been set apart as
Australia's National Emblem.
and this is very appropriate, when
you consider that it is easentilflly a
flower of winter or early spring, and
its cultivation easy. It br:ghtens up
our and rowsides and moun-
tainside and forests at a season when
there are few other flowers, ann. no
flowers more attractive than yellow
ones. When these facts are realised we
Ahall see more wattles adorning the
homes of this bright, sunny la"'d than
we do at present, for they are them-
selves 9.n emblem of sunshine. So the
a.ppropriateness of the flower being Aus-
tralia's national emblem is fully demon
strated.
We will consider some varieties of the
wattle. First we will take the black
wattle (Acacia Decurrens). It is the
one used for bark stripping, the bark
being used for tanning purposes,
The w{){l-d. after stripping, makes very
good firClwood; tHe tree also makes very
good shelter trees on farms If left to
grow.
THE TASMANIAN NATURALIST
The silver wattle (Acacia Dealbata).-
This tree, as 1 have said before, grows
to a great height; it is also stripped for
bark for tanning purposes, and is used
for the manufacture of wood-wOool. ]'Ol'
wood-wool it is necessary to get trees
of this wattle that are grown in gullies,
i.e., quick grown timber, and free from
knots. The wood wool is used for pack-
ing all sorts of fruit. It could be used
for work where fibre is used. A bale
of wood wool will pack about 500
of apples; a ton of wattle wood of 80
cubic feet measurement yields between
five and six cwt. of wood wool. The
wood, when dry. after being stripped,
is good firewood. Wattle is also used
for making staves for casks, and in the
whaling days a great deal of it was
used; the casks for holding the whale
oil were made from the wattle, cart
wheel spokes and a number of other
both useful very beautiful things.
Blackwood (Acacia Melanoxylon).
This variety of the wa.ttle is of the
most valUe ble of the Australian tim-
bers. It is a timber of the highest
class, having a. very orna.mental char-
acter, as well as great strength; it is a
hard, close-grained wood, and is very
much valued and used in making furni-
ture, billiard tables, gun stocks, walk-
ing sticks, railway and other carriages,.
(16)
and all sorts of cabinet work. It is
also used in boat building and
stem posts, ribs, rudder), naves 0'
wheds, parts of organs, pianofot'tes
(wound boards and actions), and very
many other purposes too numerous to
individualise. It is a most useful tim-
ber for ('oachbulJ,ders in the bent timuer
hranch; it bends we11, and with proper
treatment from the felling and sawing
of the timber it SUbstitutes perfectly fOl'
the bent timber in. say, an Austrian
chair, and would IO(Jk better, and feel
just as light, It valuable for panel-
liug, and will be seen in many in
the dtle!"l. It very like AmerJe:ltl
walnut.
The blackwood known in Au!'tralia
the Mudgerabah tree, and is very mUch
Used as a Shelter Tree.
It is about the only tree that
i::-;ts in that country do not ringbark. It
grows to a most beautiful tree, having
a trunk vllrying in thickness, and a very
large spread of branches of dense fol-
inge. It is an ideal shelter tree either
in summer or winter. It should be
planted ahm in gullies and foce};ts fot"
timber.
(To be continllC'd)
J. C. Breaden.