The Silver Brumby (18 page)

BLACK SALLEE TREES. Eucalyptus with dark green and black trunks, narrow, dark leaves. They grow thickly in damp places and are often hung with a grey-green fungus called Old Man’s Beard.

BLANKET-WOODS. Tall shrubs with a woolly leaf. Mostly grow around creeks.

CANDLEBARKS. Tall, beautiful eucalyptus trees, with cream or white bark that is splashed with red in summer time.

CHRISTMAS BUSH. There are a lot of native shrubs called by bushmen
Christmas Bush
because they flower at Christmas time. This one has a white flower with some mauve spots inside it.

FLYING PHALLANGER. A possum that glides from tree to tree or from a tall tree to the ground.

GANG-GANG. A dark, grey-green mountain cockatoo. The male has a scarlet crest. They are very fond of the gum-nuts (the fruit of the gum trees, containing seed). They come down to the valleys in bad weather.

KILLING GALLOWS. Looks rather like a windmill and is used for raising the bullock when killed for beef.

KURRAWONG. Big black birds with a little white on them — sometimes they are grey. They are known as the mountain magpies, and have a clear, bell-like call as well as a harsher one. They are in our garden all winter.

LOWRIE. A parrot of royal blue and scarlet, very bright.

LYREBIRD. A dark-brown bird which lives in the damp, thick bush around creeks. It has a magnificent tail which it spreads in the shape of a lyre. It can mimic any sound.

MOPOKE. A little grey-white night bird of the owl family. His cry at night — ‘Mopoke’ — can often be heard.

SKILLION ROOF. A roof built out from the main building, making a sort of lean-to shed.

SNOWGRASS. Grey-green, springy, tussocky grass which grows in the snow country. Lovely grass on which to run.

SNOWGUM. Also called a White Sallee. It is a eucalyptus that usually grows in the mountains, quite high up, and sometimes is twisted to very strange shapes. Its bark is frequently marked like a jig-saw puzzle in green, grey, white, red, pink, yellow, and orange.

TEA-TREE. Many different sorts of shrubs and trees, generally with a papery bark and a small white flower. Usually grow near creeks. They have a leaf rather like a tea leaf.

WHITE RIBBON GUMS. These are the eucalyptus trees that the native bear eats, known as ribbon gum or manna gum. In the mountains they grow very tall with white trunks, perfectly straight, like marvellous pillars.

WILLY-WILLY. Wind that goes round and round and upwards, and can bluster along at a tremendous pace, whirling everything round and up. When really fierce it is a tornado and uproots trees in a few seconds.

FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HORSES

There are four wonderful books in the Silver Brumby series — all published by Dragon books and available at 3/6d each.

Though each book is complete in itself, in effect the four books comprise one long story — and such a story, with its ice-storms, floods and bushfires, breath-taking chases, and mighty stallions fighting for leadership of their herds!

The series begins, of course, with the story of Thowra, the legendary silver stallion, named after the wind whose speed he equals. But it continues through Golden, Thowra’s favourite mare, who foals Kunama, their high-spirited and delightful daughter, whose wanderlust almost brings disaster to the herd in their secret brumby hide-out.

Still in direct line from the magnificent Thowra comes another great stallion, Baringa, whose resource and intelligence saves the herd in a later dramatic adventure.

One wonderful story, available to you in four Dragon volumes! The same brumby characters running right through the books — high adventure and moments of tenderness abounding.

What are you waiting for? Make a note of these titles and go and ask for any you haven’t read from your bookseller or newsagent.

The series, in order of appearance:

THE SILVER BRUMBY

SILVER BRUMBY’S DAUGHTER

SILVER BRUMBIES OF THE SOUTH

SILVER BRUMBY KINGDOM

oooOooo

Scanned and proofed by Amigo da Onça