The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1884-04-17
Queer Things in Australia.

| We have been witnessing strange
/ phenomena in this region. The blue
sun which shone upon us when we were
voyaging between Honolulu and Auck-
land seems to correspond with the green
sun seen about the same time by voya-
gers on the Indian Ocean. Ever. since
then, atnear intervals. the extraordinary
rose-col0red afterglow has followed the
| sunsets, The sunsets in Australia are
! said to have been always splendid, but
the metereologists here have not
| hitherto observed these aftergloWs any
more than the sea captains have OBJ
served blue and green suns. One night,
/ at st. 'Kilda, which looks westward
over the sea, we saw the afterglow as
sumo the exact form of an aurora, with
shooting and pulsating columns of pink
| light. There is little doubt here that
! these phenomena are connected with
| that tremendous volcanic CONFUSION in
| Java which sank q range of mountains
sixty miles long. A stranger. in this
region might easily be persuaded that
| the sunsets are normal, so abnormal
seem. some of the ordinary phenomena.
| The moon is seen SO clearly that every
| mark on it is often visible to the naked
| eye, The presence of 8 new armament
/ and new consultations is very impress
! sive, and even one not much given to
| star-gazing is. likely to discover that he
| had grown moro familiar than he had
supposed with, the heavens under which
he was born. The Australian earth,
too, presents strange appearance.
| Between Melbourne and Sidney one
10 zsIx n
| whose trunks, according to ones mood,
may appeara silVerY or blanched in.
| death. Many OF. them are indeed dead,
! girdled by the farmers. The bush has
aldesolate look In the gray morning
| large ''natiye bear was seen clasp
| ing atelegraph pole as our train passed.
Knowing the passion of bears Tor
honey | believed it was cub deluded
| by the humning noises into the belief
! that swarm of bees was near. My,
| theory was soon upset by discovering
! that the ''native bearf' is no bear at all,
| but q, marsupial (Koala); however, it,
/ loves fruit, and possibly honey. This
| animal bassonly rudimentary tail; its
thumb and second, finger are opposed
| to. the other fingers, and the innermost
| toe is opposable like thumb. ii@8 9G
This way the Australians have of cali,
ing things by inappropriate names is
inGonvenieht. Their tsbearH is no bear,
their sfwhiting'5' (fish) is no whiting.
their CHERRY is no cherry. their .ffyt-
/ ing f6x'h only big bat. o1t used to be
Il proYerbiallY reported that Australia
Is q place where the oysters grow on
trees, the fences are made of mahogany
!, and cherries grow with their stones out
side. There is no real mahogany in
the country, so far as Lean learn, ex-.
cept it has been imported, the so-ealled
cherry is kind of cypress, and the only
| truth about the oyster is that about some
| harbor oysters cover everything close
T to the water, including occasionally the
L roots and fallen trunks of trees. (Miser-
|, able little bits of oysters, of which it
f would takea dozen to fill a tablespoon }
+ More wonderful is the little ''hand-fsh,v
which climbs up on the beach sand,
props itself on its fif1-hands and looks
at one as pertly as p sparrow. fTas-
manian devili is good deal of hum
bug, too. At Auckland heard him de-
i scribed as oferce, untamable, danger
Gus; at Sydney (his bones only are
found in New South 'Wales) he was
I fierce, but, not often met with in Tas-
mania; at Melbourne he sank to IAN
ugly little beast;n in Tasmania it is dis
covered, that the poor little nocturnal
creature is rare and timid. There is
one creature of whose alleged habits i
had heard with some yskepticism7 the
ground parrot of New Zealand. On in
+ quirylI found the worst reports about
/ it, t,confrmed. This parrot builds its nest
on the ground, and since the introduc-
| ton of sheep, has been building it
| chiefly of, wool. To obtain, this. it
perches on the sheep back. For some
time.theworst that was feared from this
| parrot. was such small thefts of the
| golden fleece, but for some years now it
has taken totearing through the sheep's
|, back and dragging out the liver, which
| 1t devotrs. It has become q pest in
| New Zealand since thissfapid evolution
| in English civilization. It is: a large
| parrot, but I do not think it pretty; its
breast is the color of iron rilst.4-4M d.
ConsCGy, IN Philadelphia Times -