74 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXVI. 



Stockmen, and, in addition, a small band of explorers, whom Mr. 

 Poulton was sending out to see if any good grass land and water 

 existed further afield, for Mr. Poulton is the lessee from the 

 Victorian Government of many thousands of acres of un- 

 occupied land in the north-western part of the State. After 

 photographing a group of the men, we drove out to a locality known 

 as Cape Horn to see more Mallee-Fowls' nests. A White-eared 

 Honey-eater's nest with two eggs was seen, and a pair of Black- 

 backed Wrens, Malurus melanotus, were building a nest. 



Further on we came to a fine grazing area known as the Wirren- 

 gren Plain. This has an irregular boundary of about twenty miles, 

 and is the dried-up bed of an inland sea, with its bays, inlets, pro- 

 montories, &c., each named by the station hands for convenience 

 in directing the movements of stock. Miller's Tank, Stuart Island, 

 Sleeping Point, and Toy's Look-out are some of the names which 

 occur to me. This vast plain, which when we saw it was well 

 grassed and verdant in the extreme, seems to have been the 

 farthest point in this direction to which the Wimmera River had 

 been able to penetrate. A White Cockatoo was seen leaving a 

 hollow in one of the largest Red Gums on the edge of the plain, 

 and several Galahs were flushed from the same tree. As we drove 

 along parrots and cockatoos kept flushing out of the hollows in 

 every direction, while an occasional Yellow-tipped Pardalote, 

 Pardalotus affinis, would dart out, and after a time utter its 

 peculiar note, " Whit-e-chew." A flock of Black Cockatoos, 

 Galyptorhynchus Junereus, numbering at least one hundred and 

 fifty birds, were disturbed as they were feeding on the soft, 

 nutritious seeds of the Wallaby Grass, Danthonia penicillata, and 

 of the " Nardoo," Marsilea qiradri folia. As they flew away in 

 their usual heavy, laboured way, the yellow colour of the ventral 

 surface of their tail feathers showed conspicuously, in marked 

 contrast to their otherwise sombre hue. 



Driving by a dam known as Miller's Tank, we disturbed vast 

 numbers of Galahs that had come there to drink. Bronze-winged 

 Pigeons also frequent the tank, and arrive in large numbers 

 just at sundown. This habit renders them an easy prey to the pot- 

 hunter, and steps should be taken to secure their protection. 

 Among other birds noticed here was the Black-eared Cuckoo. 

 Close to the tank a pair of Wedge-tailed Eagles had built a huge 

 stick nest in the top of a box-tree. Examination of the nest 

 revealed two young birds just hatched, and the remains of a 

 rabbit and a lizard. In this part of the Mallee may be found 

 many varieties of lizards, the Sleeping or Rugged Stump-tailed 

 Lizard, Trachysnrus mgosus, the Bearded Dragon or Jew Lizard, 

 Amphibolurus harbaUis, and the common Dragon, A . ninricatus, 

 being the most common. That peculiar creature. Burton's Slow- 

 worm, Lialis burtonii, generally called a snake-lizard, owing to its 



