14 MAY 1927, Page 13

t. nSBEBRA AND ITS BIRDS.

Many people are writing and will write this week about fimberra, the new Australian capital, with the spacious site and the small population. But no one mentions that part ot the population which seemed to me singularly pleasing when I visited the neighbourhood. I mean the English gold- finches that breed round about it in quantity. A quaint onjunetion of East and West was the presence on one and The same tree of a great white cockatoo with his yellow crown, and numbers of these little golden finches. Comment has been made before on the British deciduous trees that are to be bated in Canberra—as long since in Perth—and the expec- tion is that they will flourish and keep the habit established n temperate climes. For Canberra is itself temperate in its Wee. Frost is felt there, sufficient to drive back the sap rom the leaves to the twigs, and heat is seldom excessive.

o in Australia on the spaces where trees have been ring- tacked many years before, and the. grasses flourish in their 'lace, one is struck by the likeness of the view to some old nd rather neglected park in rural England ; and Canberra los many of the virtues of both islands. It is most Australian, ut the origin of its people has coloured more than one of is features.

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