THE VICTUUIAN NATUKALIST, 81 



Barwon. Two small waterholes on the course of this drain were 

 inhabited by two species of Galaxias, the small red-finned perch 

 (Microperca), and an occasional eel. During one wet winter we 

 caught an eel i8 inches long in the furrow near the swamp. 

 This was three miles from the lakes, and the eel was in a plough 

 furrow, a quarter of a mile from the nearest waterhole, in a mere 

 trickle of water six inches broad and one or tv/o deep. Naturally, 

 in pouring rain, it could travel more widely and more easily. 

 The furrow contained many Galaxias as well. 



Some time ago Mr. W. Hopkins, in a paper read before this Club 

 {Victorian Natixralist, xx., p. 46), mentioned several dams on the 

 plains west of the long reach of the Barwon between Wiiichelsea 

 and Inverleigh. The overflow from these dams runs into Lake 

 Murdeduke, which has no outlet, is salt, and contains no eels. 

 Yet these dams all contain eels. Mr. Hopkins had ridden 

 constantly over these plains in all weathers, and said he had 

 never met an eel travelling over the grass on its way from the 

 Barwon to this inland basin. His conclusion was that the eels 

 bred in the dams. Last year I was at Gnarwarre, where I met 

 Mr. Patrick Corbett, who has lived in the district for over 50 

 years. He was telling tales of his experiences, and mentioned as 

 a curious fact that he once found in a wet season a fair-sized eel 

 out on the Murdeduke Plains, miles from the river and from any 

 dam. Can there be any doubt how the long chain of swamps 

 from Murdeduke to Lakes Calvert and Colac are populated by 

 eels ? One positive observation is worth a hundred negative 

 ones. 



Turning from the discussion as to the means of dispersal of 

 eels, let us consider a few facts as to their distribution, or the 

 districts in which they are found. One of the peculiarities of the 

 distribution of life in Victoria is the distinctness of the flora and 

 fauna north and south of the Dividing Range. For the past forty 

 years it has been generally accepted as a fact, and repeatedly 

 stated, that eels, which are present in all the south-flowing 

 streams, are absent from the Murray and its tributaries. It is 

 true that occasionally eels have been reported from some of the 

 affluents of the Murray, but their reporters have evidently 

 considered the fact worthy of record from its rarity of occurrence. 

 It is possible that they were not eels, but lampreys, for no qualified 

 person, as far as I know, has confirmed the identification. Even 

 if they were eels, we should not be surprised at an occasional 

 wanderer finding its way over the small space separating some of 

 the head waters of the northern and southern streams. 



A correspondent who lived at Boort, on the Lower Loddon, 

 who is an enthusiastic fisherman, told me that the inhabitants he 

 had spoken to did not know what an eel was like. They had 

 never seen one, and this held true for the Murray and billabongs 



