The account of the trip across Australia from south '
to north and back again undertaken by the McCullum Motor Expedition and given by Captain White, the well- : known Australian ornithologist, to the members of the Field Naturalists' Society at Adelaide the other day, is one of surpassing interest. How different Central Australia and the Northern Territory appear, as de- - scribed by him, from the Never-never-land as we have pictured it—a land of colour, Captain White shows us, of brilliant-plumaged birds, of flaming blossoms and waving grasses. Those who are acquainted with the Australian landscape know from personal experience that the gum-tree can be anything but monotonous, but they were hardly prepared for some of Captain White's attractive word-pictures—such, for instance, as that of the colour effect noticed in the blue gum at Barrow Creek, where from the distance the tree looked like a blue haze on account of the luminous bloom on the leaves and pods. All lovers of Australia must hope that Captain White's plea for the pieservation of a large area of the Northern Territory in its natural state, so that the animal and vegetable life may be kept intact, will be successful. A kind of Australian Yellowstone Park is what is wanted. Those who have seen the kangaroo and the emu in their natural haunts can never forget the thrill that such a sight inspired, and there is no reason why Australians two hundred and fifty years hence should not be similarly fortunate.
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