BOTANICAL INFORMATION, 489 
shepherd's station, and was subsequently astonished to 
learn, that in that remote part, which at Mr. R. W. Lau- 
rence's visit was deemed almost valueless for stock, there 
are now within a few miles six or seven persons who send 
Stock to depasture during the summer months; viz., from 
December to April, after the sheep are shorn. At this time, 
twelve thousand sheep and about two hundred head of cattle 
occupied the vicinity of Arthur’s Lakes. At the Great Lake, 
afew miles west, many thousands more were depastured. 
A very small portion of the land is granted yet; the greater 
part being occupied by squatters who pay the government a 
few pounds a year as rent for a certain number of acres; but 
as no fences are erected, eacb person usually rents about 
five hundred acres, but occupies two or three thousand. The 
practice with many is to erect a hut of sods, covered with 
Eucalyptus bark, thatched with grass, of a very primitive form, 
about November; or, if they occupied the ground, the pre- 
vious season, repair the old hut, and immediately after sheep- 
shearing in December, the sheep are sent up with two shep- 
herds per thousand sheep, and a cart with four months? 
supply of flour, tea, sugar and tobacco. Meat is obtained 
from the flock. When the weather indicates the approach 
of winter, about April, the flocks are removed to the low 
country, where the pasture begins to spring and the country 
to look green after the first autumn rains. 
Close to the shepherd’s hut I pitched my small tent, and 
as I was looking out for an unoccupied piece of ground as a 
sheep station for next season, I was not disposed to extend 
my rambles many miles farther from Formosa than I could 
help, and therefore made this my centre of observation. I 
walked to the Eastern Arthur’s Lake about half a mile distant. 
It is a fine sheet of water which I judged to be about fifteen 
miles in circumference. On its margin Drosera binata, and 
no. 784, very abundant and close to the edge, yet in the 
water, where sheltered from the waves, Villarsia reniformis, 
717, grew in profusion, but the cattle had eaten off almost 
every flower. Isoetes setacea? formed small clumps, two or 
