Chapter XXXIX: Australia

Anyone desiring a change from the wearisome rotation of our seasons, should go to Australia, where Spring commences on September the twenty-third, Summer on December the twenty-second, Autumn on March the twenty-first and Winter on June the twenty-first.

The Fauna of Australia, as if determined not to be outdone in eccentricity by the Seasons, is represented by the Ornithorynchus Paradoxus, which Peter Simple has described in the following lines

My child, the Duck-billed Platypus
A sad example sets for us.
From him we learn how indecision
Of character provokes derision.
This vacillating beast, you see,
Could not decide which he would be--
Fish, flesh or fowl--and chose all three.
The scientists were sorely vexed,
To classify him so perplexed
Their brains that they with rage at bay
Called him a horrid name one day,
A name that baffles, frights and shocks us
Ornithorynchus Paradoxus.

* * *

The inhabitants of Australia are the most Moral and Patriotic people in the World, and their army is second to none in bravery and won the World War.