152 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



expected from an inspection of the Buffalo Mountain from below, 

 one is on a grassy plain surrounded by small hills of granite, in 

 places bare of all vegetation, and studded with huge boulders. 

 As the journey to the Horn showed, there is a considerable 

 stretch of country, composed of a series of valleys, divided from 

 each other by small but precipitous hills, of which the Hump 

 and the Horn are the most striking examples. Peaty morasses 

 are present in all the valleys, the peat being apparently of con- 

 siderable thickness. This peat was very suggestive of the former 

 existence of a series of mountain lakes. The nearer valley to 

 the camp was where the " Hospice " is situated, and on the 

 arrival of the party presented a promising appearance to the 

 pond-life gatherer. A visit was, however, not made to this spot 

 before the heavy rains came, which filled the old pools to the 

 brim and created a great many more. Under these circumstances 

 the yield was not great. Of the Entomostraca gathered here, the 

 common Cylops was the most numerous, and of a number of the 

 Daphnia family submitted to Mr. J. F. Haase he recognized 

 Chydorus leonardi and two species of Alona. Desmids were 

 fairly plentiful, and under normal conditions of rainfall this would 

 no doubt prove a prolific collecting ground. It was curious that 

 not a single Rotifer was seen, this also being due to the flooding 

 of the pools with rain water. — J. Shephard. 



Botany. — The wonderful poesy which the world of the Alps 

 presents in its springtime is strange to the inhabitants of the 

 lowlands. One who visits the Australian Alps at Christmas 

 will find, in comparison with the vegetation of lower altitudes, 

 that the plant-life has not as far advanced, nature there pre- 

 senting us with an awakening spring, which has again and again 

 filled the hearts of men with greatest delight. But spring in the 

 Alps must be seen not only from the depths of the valleys — 

 it must be viewed from the heights of the mountains, for there is 

 the kingdom of the Alpine flowers, where beauty of form is 

 competing with splendour of colour or perfume. 



As our arrival at Porepunkah, the nearest railway station to 

 our destination, took place late in the afternoon of the 24th 

 December, not much could be done that day in the way of 

 collecting. The road, which crosses the valleys of the Ovens and 

 the Buckland Rivers, leads for three miles through more or less 

 uninteresting country. Bushes of Ilymenanthera hanksii, in 

 company with some of Acacia pravissima, Bnrsaria spinosa, 

 and Prostanthera lasiantha, lining the cultivated paddocks, give an 

 impression which does not seem to promise much for the botanist. 

 Half-way to the Eurobin we enter the forest, here consisting chiefly 

 of Eucalyptus amygdalina, E. melliodora^ and E. gnnni, while 

 the under-shrub was represented by Exocarpus stricta, E. 

 cvpressiformis, Aster aster otrichus, and Leptospermum lanigerum, 



