When the hungry hawk comes circling over the grove of crookedy gum in which two magpies are feeding their callow young, the bush is soon filled with cries of alarm.  The plump quail hides himself in the depths of a thick tussock; the bronze-winged pigeon dives into the shelter of the nearest scrub, while all the noisiest scolds of the air gather round the intruder.  Every magpie, minah, and wattle-bird within a mile joins in the clamour.  They dart at the hawk as he flies from tree to tree.  When he alights on a limb they give him no peace; they flap their wings in his face, and call him the worst of names.  Even the Derwent Jackass, the hypocrite with the shining black coat and piercing whistle, joins in the public outcry, and his character is worse than that of the hawk himself, for he has been caught in the act of kidnapping and devouring the unfledged young of his nearest neighbour.  The distracted hawk has at length to retreat dinnerless to the swampy margin of the river where the tallest tea-trees wave their feathery tops in the wind.

In like manner the human hawk was driven from the township.  He descended in the scale of crime, stole a horse, and departed by night.

Bill, the butcher, said next day:  “Nosey has gone for good this time.  He will ride that horse to death and then steal another.”

At this time I rode through the Rises and called at the two huts; I found them occupied by two shepherds not unlike the former tenants, who knew little and cared less what had become of their predecessors.  Time empties thrones and huts impartially, and the king feels no pride in his monument of marble, nor the shepherd any shame beneath the shapeless cairn which hides his bones.

At this time the old races both of men and animals were dying out around Lake Nyalong, and others were taking their places.  The last black child ever seen in the township was brought by its mother to the hut of a white woman.  It was naked and very dirty, and she laid it down on the clay floor.  The white woman’s heart was moved with pity at the sight of the miserable little bairn.  She took it up, washed it with warm water and soap, wrapped it in flannel, and gave it back to the mother.  But the lubra was loath to receive it.  She said, “Black picaninny all die.  No good; white picaninny live.”

The kangaroo, wombat, and dingo were fast dying out, as well a the blackfellow.  We could all see well enough how the change was brought about.  Millions of years ago, new species may have been evolved out of the old species, but nothing of the kind happens now.  The white men of Australia were not evolved out of the black men.  There are no family ties, and never will be, between the kangaroo, the wombat and wallaby, and their successors, the cattle, the sheep, and the goats.  We can kill species, but we can’t create any.