228 



height of fifty feet, and its trunk frequently exceeded two 

 feet and a half in diameter. 



Amongst the new botany of this tract may be enumerated 

 a species of Metrosideros of great elegance, forming thickets 

 on the flats, and intermingling with two other species of the 

 same genus, but of less beauty. Its flowers are of the most 

 brilliant scarlet: the general height of the plant six feet. 

 There were also a pink-flowered handsome species of Cen- 

 taurea, a remarkable dwarf species of Hakea, two species of 

 Daviesia and Dryandra armata. 



I observed a species of PsittacuS) (Cockatoo,) in large 

 flocks, whose voice is more plaintive than that of the white 

 cockatoo. It feeds on the roots of Orchideous plants, to 

 obtain which it scratches the ground to a considerable depth. 



While attending to a boat in the rivei", which the party 

 were dragging over the mud, I distinctly heard the bellowing 

 of some huge animal, similar to that of an ox, proceeding 

 from an extensive marsh farther up the river. (Could this be 

 the Dugong* of the French?) Immediately afterwards I 



* The Dugony, or Dougong, of the French, is the Trichecus Dugong of 

 Gmelin, an inhabitant of the Indian seas, but is not, that I am aware, found 

 in the part of New Holland visited by Mr. Fraser. The animal whose bellow- 

 ing he heard, was unquestionably the Phoca prohoscidea (now made the genus 

 ]\Iacrorhi?uts) of Pcron's Voyage aux Terres Australes, v. 2. p. SA. t. 32. TJie 

 Phoqtie a trompe, Elephant marin, Bottle-nosed Seal, Sea-Lion of Anson's Voy- 

 age. The French Voyagers heard it in the same river, and, as it appears, for 

 the first time. They were descending the river, overpowered with misfortune 

 and fatigue, and want of food. In the midst of their dangers, night came on. 

 " Nous nous disposions a mettre pied a terre pour nous secher et reparer notre 

 vigeur eteinte, lorsque tout-a-coup un hurlement terrible vint nous glacer de 

 terreur; il etait semblablc au mugissement d'un boiuf, mais beaucaup plus fort, 

 et paroissoit sortir des roseaux voisins. A ce cri redoubtable, nous perdimes 

 toute envie de descendre a terre et quoique transis de froid, nous preferames 

 passer la nuit sur I'eau, sans souper et sans pouvoir fcrmer I'oeil, a cause de la 

 pluie et du froid." v. 1. p. 183. Their alarm would probably have been 

 still greater, could they have formed an idea of the size of the animal, which is 

 from twenty-five to thirty feet in length : and it herds in such numbers that the 

 whole shore of the bottom of a bay has been seen covered with them, giving the 

 appearance, at a little distance, of masses of black rock. The remarkable fea- 

 ture of the animal is, that, in the male, the nostrils, which, at rest, are 



