Anomalies of Australian Fauna. — German Settlers. 21 



instead of feathers, tlie flowers no fragrance, the birds no 

 melody, and the trees, like so many Peter Schlemils, no 

 shadow. Although Nature has been guilty of some few freaks 

 both in Australia and in New Zealand, and has created some 

 extraordinary animals, such, for examj^le, as the duck-billed 

 platypus {ornithorrhynchus paradoxus)^ the ant-eater, the kiwi, 

 &c., these are but exceptions, and there are here but few 

 differences to be remarked in either the animal or vegetable 

 world, such as should distinguish it for extravagance beyond 

 all other countries. In Australia there are birds that sing, 

 and odoriferous trees and flowers in great profusion, and the 

 forests, at those places whither the axe of the busy settler has 

 not yet penetrated or imparted to it a park-like aspect, are as 

 dense, as thickly clothed with underwood, and as difficult to 

 make one's way through, as in any other quarter of the globe 

 under a similar latitude. 



Close beside the elegant residence of Sir William are ex- 

 tensive vineyards, to superintend which he imported German 

 vine-dressers from the Rheingau. Each of these families has 

 his own hut, a plot of garden ground, and in addition to 

 rations of milk, bread, and butter, receives £25 per annum 

 wages. Wlien these good folks heard that strangers, com- 

 patriots of theirs, were among them, with whom they could 

 converse in their mother-tongue, a dozen or so at once assem- 

 bled to bid us welcome. Most of these betrayed a certain 

 gfmount of hesitation in expressing themselves in their own 

 language, and, like the same class in Pennsylvania, whenever 



