138 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



and flavour of manna, as ordinarily picked up on the ground 

 under the large White Gums. A tew fine bushes of I'inielea 

 ligustrina grow alongside the road near the township. By the 

 evening train two additional gentlemen arrived to join our party. 

 Havmg made some preliminary inquiries, it was decided to 

 devote Sunday to a visit to the Cascades, near the head of the 

 Four-Mile Creek, to which Mr. Purdey, jun., kindly offered to 

 act as guide. Before breakfast a scramble in a gully close to the 

 township revealed a promising spot for the Monday. Two 

 friends at the hotel having decided to share in our adventures for 

 the day, we made a party of ten, four being ladies. Our road 

 lay through " Lala," where we picked up our guide, then, crossing 

 the Four-Mile Creek on the Old Warburton road, we headed 

 up a steep spur for about a mile, when, coming to a disused 

 water race, cut years ago for mining purposes, and following a 

 contour line along the hillside, we turned eastwards, and were 

 soon in a thick tangle of shrubs and tree ferns. In the ditch 

 alongside us were numerous smaller ferns, such as Gleichenia 

 Jiahellata, Lomaria lanceolata, L. fliiviatilis, &c. Following 

 along this path, crossing one or two smaller streams, we again 

 came to the Four-Mile Creek. Here we must have been about 

 I, GOO feet above Warburton, or some 1,500 feet above sea level. 

 Leaving tlie track, such as it was, we now commenced a scramble 

 almost up the bed of the creek, which descends the hillside at a 

 grade of about i in i, amidst a luxuriant growth of tree and other 

 ferns. In about a mile, and perhaps a thousand feet higher, our 

 guide said we had come to the best part of the Cascades, and 

 finding almost the only spot where it was possible to camp, left 

 us to our own devices for the rest of the day. The billy was 

 boiled and lunch disposed of. Then, leaving the ladies to 

 explore the immediate vicinity of the camp, the gentlemen 

 decided to climb higher, and, if possible, reach the crest of the 

 range. It was hard work scrambling in the gully amidst such a 

 wealth of tree ferns, but we got some glorious glimpses of giant 

 ferns, and also of giant trees, for growing on the hillside were 

 some of the straightest and most symmetrical trees it has been 

 our lot to see, while many of them must have been from ten to 

 twelve feet in diameter, and of great height. However, the 

 climb did not yield many specimens, a few Mountain Brown 

 Butterflies being almost the only representatives of entomology, 

 and the vegetation, with the exception of Oxylobium elli2:>ticum, 

 was of the usual fern-gully type. Having nearly reached the 

 summit, which must be over 3,000 feet above sea level, we 

 decided to return, and on account of the steepness were back at 

 the camp in less than no time. Here afternoon tea was disposed 

 of, and as the weather looked threatening — in fact, as billows of 

 niist were rolling over a distant ridge into a neighbouring valley — 

 we deemed it time to pack up and make a start for home. Close 



