Doc, 1907.] THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 129 



the Still blazing or charred stumps and ash-heaps, and, on 

 the other side, the beauty of a natural woodland. Whilst real- 

 izing the necessity for partial clearing to prepare for grazing, and 

 in places total clearing for ploughing, one may ask, " Will the 

 Victorian pioneer settler never realize that in the trees and shrubs, 

 to which he so vigorously applies his axe and ' fire-stick,' he 

 destroys many would-be friends to himself, his cattle, and his 

 crops ? " 



Ingress to the water supply reserve is barred by a locked gate 

 on the crest of a low spur, at the foot of which, on the northern 

 side, is the small reservoir known as Toorourong. The reser- 

 voir covers about 30 acres, and receives the waters of Jack's 

 Creek and the east branch of the Plenty River. These flow 

 from the Dividing Range, the sources of some of the tributaries 

 being in the gullies of Mt. Disappointment, a granite mass in 

 the midst of and towering above the surrounding silurian. 

 This is a very pretty spot at any season, and those who speak 

 disappointedly of " the monotonous green of Australian gum- 

 trees " should look across the sheltered, mirror-like surface of 

 Toorourong in early spring, and see the wealth of colour — reds, 

 greens, blues, and browns — of the delicate new foliage of several 

 species of eucalyptus. In early spring, those who have eyes to 

 see and do see may find almost every tone in the chromatic 

 scale in the eucalyptus "scrub" of Victoria. Soon, indeed, much 

 of this will have merged into more sombre hues, but not all ; even 

 the matured foliage of a young forest of eucalypts is, I contend, 

 not monotonous. 



In June annual herbs are not much in evidence, but on some 

 poorly grassed parts innumerable earth-hugging rosettes of 

 the " Bushman's Tonic," Erythrea australis, promised waves of 

 pink to brighten the summer's landscape. Here and there the 

 viscid, highly coloured rosettes of young Sundews, Drosera 

 Whittakeri, &c., were already justifying their inclusion among 

 carnivorous organisms. 



In the reservoir the hollow, rush-like Heleocharis sphacelata, 

 had not begun to show new shoots above the water, but these 

 were found to be just bursting from the stout rhizomes in the 

 mud at the bottom. The only other semi-aquatic macrophyte in 

 the reservoir was Juncus communis, and from marginal clumps of 

 this, and 'from last season's decayed shoots of Heleocharis I 

 obtained some water samples for algological examination, the 

 result of which may be referred to at another time. Though a 

 number of green algae were observed, the most plentiful micro- 

 scopic plant in the reservoir was the zig-zag chain diatom, 

 Tabellaria Jiocculosa, which was more plentiful than I had ever 

 seen it before. It seemed to be most abundant amongst the 

 rushes in a foot depth of water. 



