3G6 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. Dec] 



surf-rollers crasLing and breaking a short distance to our left, 

 while the spent waves curled up to our very feet, and the spray 

 drifted across us like showers of fine rain. 



For some distance we found nothing more extraordinary than 

 the crushed and broken fragments of sea-shells, shreds of coarse 

 algoe, and some six or seven specimens of a pretty little Coccindla 

 with yellow spots ; and then came another branch of the Salt River 

 slightly deeper and a good deal broader than the last: hoivever, 

 we forded it without diflficulty, and, leaving the beach, took the 

 river-bank as a guide to further progress. Thereabouts the land 

 on either side of the stream was very flat, though it rose gradually 

 on the left hand, in low, sandy undulations, and at last, swelled 

 up to a ridge along the sea-shore fourteen or fifteen feet, in some 

 places, above the water level. 



The Zout, or Salt River rises near Riebeck's Castle, a mountain 

 in the District of Malmesburg, 3109 feet high, and, after a course 

 of about forty miles, falls into Table Bay a short distance below 

 where we crossed it. At the time of our visit, the water was very 

 low, and much of the flat sandy bed was uncovered, affording 

 great attraction to the sandpipers and small plovers that were 

 feeding merrily upon its surface. Of these we recognized Cha- 

 radrius tricollaris, Kittlitzi et marginatus, the turnstone ((Jin- 

 clus inferjyres), the red shank {Totanus calidris), the green sand- 

 piper [Totanus ochropus)^ the greenshank {Totanus glottis), 

 the pigmy curlew {Tringa Siiharquata'), the sanderling (^Cali- 

 di'is arenaria)^ and the little stint (^Tringa minuta), the last 

 three in largish flocks, the others far less abundant, and the turn- 

 stones keeping, as L. — remarked, apart from the rest in a little 

 band of six or seven. No curlews were in sight, nor any other 

 birds besides those I have mentioned, excepting a few swifts, and 

 two or three swallows, which were careering through the pure air 

 with their usual grace and rapidity : the former appeared to be 

 all representatives of Ci/pselus opus, and the latter of Hirundo 



rustica. 



There was an alluvial deposit of mud on either bank of the 

 river, and this, on the side next the sea, where we were, w^as cov- 

 ered with wild chamomile, (^Mntrlcaria hirtd), whose white- 

 rayed blossoms perfumed the air with their fragrance. There 

 were also quantities of samphire (Crithmum maritimiuii) , quite 

 crimson in some places, apparently where it had been covered at 

 hi^^h water by the Salt Stream. Outside of this border of alluvial 



