THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 91 



blue and yellow Earinus kreusleri, and was taken clinging to the 

 small dry twigs of the Baeckea. This beetle is, we believe, very 

 rare — at all events, we have never before seen a specimen, and at 

 first we thought it also might be new. One of the peculiar features 

 of these sand hills is one of the Honeysuckles, Banksia ornata, 

 which grows from eight to twelve feet high, in a regular round 

 form, and is a most ornamental shrub. Growing about here was 

 an abundance of Ptilotus exaltatns, with its large heads of a 

 whitish colour fringed with pink ; these when dried make fine 

 vase ornaments. It grows from eighteen inches to two feet high. 

 Shrubs seen here other than these above named were Melaleuca 

 wilsoni and M. uncinata (the former being in flower), Stackhousia 

 /lava, and Eriostemon stenopJiyllus. 



A few miles out of Dimboola is a small salt lake, and at the 

 time of our visit the machinery for making salt, which had been 

 unused for some time, was being got in order, with a view to an 

 early resumption of operations. We tasted the water, and can 

 say with truth that it is indeed salt, and should give satisfactory 

 results to the manufacturer. Growing around the lake are a num- 

 ber of the large Ti-tree, Melaleuca parvi/lora, or Paper Bark Tree, 

 but they were not prolific of insect life — in fact, they possessed 

 none at all. The country about here offers very little encourage- 

 ment to the collector — at least judging so from the results of our 

 labours all the way back to Dimboola ; and we tried every source 

 from which we thought insects might be obtainable. We did, 

 however, secure a Frilled Lizard, Grammatophora barbata, but it 

 escaped from its confinement during the night. Along the railway 

 line, inside the fence, was growing some of the pretty grass, Stipa 

 elegantissima, of which we took a good quantity, as it makes a 

 very nice vase decoration. Whilst in Dimboola a peculiar kind of 

 cold was prevalent, and the writer was unfortunate enough to fall 

 one of the victims to it. It attacks the throat, and for a few days 

 renders it very difficult, if not almost impossible, to speak, and one 

 does not get over the effects of it for months. All the residents 

 are convinced that it was solely attributable to the pollen of the 

 Cape Weed, Cryptostemma calendulaceum, a plant the introduction 

 of which has been attributed to the late Baron Von Mueller, but 

 wrongly so, as we are informed it was found in Western Australia 

 before he came to this colony. An enthusiastic and well-known 

 botanical contributor to our club, Mr. F. M. Reader, resides here, 

 and we spent a very pleasant and instructive evening with him. 

 To say that we looked through all his large collection would be 

 absurd — it would take days to do that — but we saw sufficient to 

 satisfy us that of plants obtainable in the Dimboola district his 

 collection is a perfect one. Mr. Reader very generously allowed 

 us to take specimens from his entomological collection, and we 

 thus obtained some beetles that are not only rare but new to us. 



