Vol. XXVII. 



IQII 



j AuDAS, Wanderings in East Gippsland. 169 



and I was pleased to find superior accommodation — tor so far 

 back — at Riverview House, a tourist accommodation house 

 conducted by Mr. J. C. Wyatt. 



The show places of Buchan are certainly the caves, of which 

 many are knowii about the district, and which compare very 

 favourably with those of other States ; but, to my mind, the 

 place itself, with its beautiful wooded gullies, steep hills — many 

 cultivated to the very summit, and others rugged and serrated, 

 and almost inaccessible — proved more interesting. These hills 

 are of Devonian marine limestone. Near the entrance to Moon 

 Cave is an exposure of beautiful black marble. The soil on 

 the hills is rich chocolate and on the flats black. Maize and 

 oats are the principal crops grown, ana an idea of the fertility 

 of the district may be gathered from the fact that splendid 

 crops of oats have been grown on one block of land uninter- 

 ruptedly for a period of thirty years without the addition of 

 manure of any kind. Crops of maize grown on the flats average 

 80 bushels per acre, but many go over 100. It seemed to me 

 a pity that land so fertile should be mainly devoted to sheep ; 

 but the farmers, in growing root crops, are handicapped by the 

 difficulty of getting the produce to market, cartage to Mossiface 

 and freight by boat to Melbourne amounting to about 60 per 

 cent, of the returns for their labour. 



Immense numbers of cockatoos abound, so numerous as to 

 cover the willows along the river with white. One settler 

 described them to me as " the white labour," because they 

 picked the crops and made no charge. 



On the 17th I set out to investigate the flora at the head of 

 Spring Creek, which flows to the westward of the townshi]). 

 Along the valley the air was thick with the perfume of the Scrub 

 Boxwood, Hymenanthera Banksii, which abounded thickly, and 

 whose tiny creamy flowers, hidden under narrow sage-green 

 leaves, proved greatly attractive to wild bees, which were busy 

 among them. Tristania laurina. " kanooka," a fairly large 

 myrtaceous tree with yellow flowers, and Casuarina siiberosa, 

 black oak, an erect-branched sheoak reaching a height of ajbout 

 40 feet, were very plentiful all along the creek, and near by the 

 Peppermint Gum, Eucalyptus amygdalina, was laden with its 

 lovely fluffy blooms. At the waterfall near the head of the 

 creek the scene was very pretty, all the rocks and fallen timber 

 being covered with mosses and ferns. Among the latter were 

 the spotted po'ypody, Polypodium pustulatuin and P. australe, 

 while Cheihi utiles tcnuifolia, the rock fern, nestled under the 

 boulders. I only noted one shrub of Hakca criinitlui. Woolly- 

 flowered Hakea, which was well out in bloom. 

 > Nearly all the timber and shrubs close to the creek was in- 

 fested by the lichens Ranialina leiodea, var. fasiigiata, Thelo- 



