92 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Cockatoos, Calyptorhynchus funereus, flapped sluggishly across 

 the valley, emitting their mournful cries. The river near here 

 was bordered with the usual vegetation — Christmas-tree, 

 Prostanthera lasiantha, Musk, Aster argophyllus, Hazel, 

 Fomaderris apetala, Silver Wattle, Acacia dealbata, Tree Ferns, 

 &c. Past the Gehi hut a glorious view of Kosciusko was 

 obtained. Range after range, densely clad with timber, peeped 

 above its fellow for miles back from the river, till with one mighty 

 sweep the bold, bare, granite escarpments of the parent mount 

 reared themselves high above the faint wavy tree-line, while the 

 clouds, departing from the glistening valleys as if loth to vanish, 

 disported their loitering vapours 'mid the crags and battlements. 

 We could not reach Kosciusko up this valley, which is unexplored, 

 but followed the track which runs southerly and crosses the 

 Youngal Range, a western spur from Kosciusko. Wherever the 

 rocks were visible on this range they were granitoid in character. 

 The range where we crossed it was specially noticeable for its 

 stillness, even in these usually quiet Australian forests. Occasion- 

 ally the twitter of the Scrub Wrens, Sericornis, could be heard 

 in the scrubby gullies, the rush of the startled Scrub Wallaby, 

 Macropus ualahatus, on the spurs, while in the tall trees the only 

 birds heard were the Laughing Jackass, Dacelo gigas, the Grey 

 Magpie, and the King Lory Parrot. Strangely enough, not a 

 Lyre-bird was seen or heard, though traces of them could be 

 seen on every hand. 



The forest in part was a splendid one of Peppermint, Messmate, 

 Eucalyptus obliqua, and Black butt, Eucalyptus pilularis, with thick 

 scrubs of Acacias (Wattles, Native Willows, &c.), Hazel, Tree 

 Ferns, &c., especially in the gullies. We soon crossed this range, 

 at an altitude of about 2,700 feet, and descended steadily, waist 

 deep through Native Hop scrub, Daviesia latifolia, and Kangaroo 

 Grass, to the Indi River flats below Groggin. The gently sloping 

 strip of country between the range and the river had numbers of 

 small springs in Tea-tree patches, and from them and from the 

 river below numerous cattle tracks led in every direction. Near 

 Groggin this granitoid rock, probably a quartz-mica-diorite, can 

 be seen in the Indi River. It extends up past Groggin, and 

 constitutes part of the ridge between the Snowy and the Leather- 

 jacket (Leatherbarrel) Creeks. Groggin consists simply of an old 

 hut on the New South Wales side and another on the Victorian 

 side. The latter was occupied by old Jack Riley, the stockman 

 of the run ; the former is used by drovers and wild horse hunters, 

 and in it we camped. 



ist April. — This morning we were astir early, and got direc- 

 tions from Riley for Kosciusko, but, as we found later on to 

 our cost, he omitted the most essential one. This resulted in 

 our missing the proper track after crossing Snowy Creek, and 



