oi:'? 



VICTORIA. 257 



we all got out ; and before we reached a camping ground it was 

 pitch dark, and one of the springs was broken. 



We had some difficulty in finding our way in the bit of bush 

 to the best camping place, and then in finding the water hole 

 and leading the horses to it. We set fire to a great fallen log, 

 made tea in a "billy," a simple tin pot with wire handle, the 

 universal Australian camp teapot, and had hardly lain down 

 to sleep under our tent before it came on to rain heavily. It 

 continued to rain all the next day. 



Waking in the night I heard Opossums (Phalangister vulpina) 

 caterwauling in the gum trees close by, and in the early morning 

 the Laughing-jackasses and Piping Crows kept up a curiously 

 contrasted concert ; the loud harsh laugh of the former min- 

 gling with the flute-like musical notes of the latter. 



Notwithstanding the rain, I shot a beautiful paroquet, of 

 which and other birds numerous flocks were flying about. With 

 the help of a neighbouring farmer, who rented the bush for 

 grazing, an Opossum was driven out of its hole in a dead- 

 branch or " pipe " of a gum tree and secured. 



The scratches of the claws of the Opossum on the bark 

 of the tree, show at once whether a tree is inhabited or not. 

 All the bigger trees were scored deeply and marked with a 

 regular track right up to the various pipes in the dead-branches 

 far overhead. The timber of many of the gum trees decays 

 away in the heart with great rapidity. Hence, whenever a 

 branch is broken off, a pipe is soon formed, and it is especially 

 these holes with abrupt entrances which the opossum affects. 



The tracks are always on the side of the tree trunk on which 

 the slope renders ascent most easy. The opossum economizes 

 liis force, or is lazy, and this fact is turned to advantage by 

 trappers, who snare the opossums in order to make the opossum 

 rugs, of which so many are used in Australia and exported. 



A short piece of a stout branch with a fork at the end, 

 is placed leaning against the butt of a tree meeting the opossum 

 path, the jaws of the fork embracing the round of the trunk 

 a little, so as to keep all steady. About a foot or so from 

 the fork a noose is placed on the lean-to, being kept in place by 



a notch. 



s 



