188 cook's voyage to jan. 



peppermint; and in its nature, it has some affinity to 

 the myrtus of botanists. 



" The most common tree, next to this, is a small 

 one about ten feet high, branching pretty much, with 

 narrow leaves, and a large, yellow, cylindrical flower, 

 consisting only of a vast number of filaments; which, 

 being shed, leave a fruit like a pine-top. Both the 

 above-mentioned trees are unknown in Europe. 



" The underwood consists chiefly of a shrub some- 

 what resembling a myrtle, and which seems to be the 

 leptospermum scopariwn, mentioned in Dr. Forster's 

 Char. Gen. Plant.; and, in some places, of another, 

 rather smaller, which is a new species of the melaleuca 

 of Linnseus. 



" Of other plants, which are by no means numerous, 

 there is a species of gladiolus, rush, bell-flower, sam- 

 phire, a small sort of wood-sorrel, milk-wort, cudweed, 

 and Job's tears; with a few others, peculiar to the 

 place. There are several kinds of fern, as polypody, 

 spleenwort, female fern, and some mosses; but the 

 species are either common, or at least found in some 

 other countries, especially New Zealand. 



" The only animal of the quadruped kind we got, 

 was a sort of opossum, about twice the size of a large 

 rat ; and is, most probably, the male of that species 

 found at Endeavour River, as mentioned in Hawkes- 

 worth's Collection of Voyages.* It is of a dusky 

 colour above, tinged with a brown or rusty cast, and 

 whitish below. About a third of the tail, towards its 

 tip, is white, and bare underneath ; by which it pro- 

 bably hangs on the branches of trees, as it climbs 

 these, and lives on berries. The kangooroo, another 

 animal found farther northward in New Holland, as 

 described in the same Voyage t, without all doubt 

 also inhabits here, as the natives we met with had 

 some pieces of their skins; and we several times saw 

 animals, though indistinctly, run from the thickets 



* Vol. II. p. 167. of this Edition of Cook's Voyages, 

 f Ibid. p. 159. 



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