130 O'DoNOGHUE AND St. JoHN, [ vLk'xXIX. 



FURTHER NOTES OX THE BRISBANE RANGE. 



By J. G. O'DoNOGHUE and P. R. H. St. John. 

 (^Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, i ith Nov., 1912.) 

 Nearly two years ago we had the })leasure ol reading l)efore 

 this Club a paper [Vict. Nat., vol. xxvi., p. 151) descriptive of 

 the l)irds and plants met with during a three days' tramj) 

 through the Brisbane Range in October, 1909. Oi;r remarks on 

 that occasion seem to have aroused some interest in this little- 

 known locality, and led to two members visiting the northern 

 end of the range, near Rowsley, in September, i()ii, for the 

 purj)ose of collecting wild-flowers for the annual Club exhibition. 

 Since then we have made several visits to the district, and from 

 the results venture to hope that this paper on the bird and 

 plant life of a locality comparatively unknown to memluMS of 

 the Club will also prove interesting. 



Apart from the object of collecting data to comjMle a census 

 of the flora of the range for the guidance and information of 

 Club members botanically inclined, the primary motive in 

 selecting Lara rather than Rowsley — the nearest railway 

 station to the range — as our starting-point on the morning of 

 the i6th September, 1911, was to examine a eucalypt growing 

 on the right bank of Sutherland's Creek, near the townshij) of 

 Maude. During Easter week prior to this trip the tree was 

 noted and seen to be possessed of characteristics that 

 difterentiated it from any of the known species recorded for 

 Victoria. Lethbridge, on the Geelong-Ballarat line, would 

 certainly have been nearer our objective than Lara, but, as we 

 l)urj)osed examining several trees of Eucalyptus viminalis, var. 

 plnriflora — then not recorded as occurring in Victoria — ^growing 

 on the banks of the Moorabool, and a thicket of Melaleuca 

 Preissiana in the neighbourhood of Maude bridge, we did not 

 favour the idea of retracing our steps, a procedure which this 

 route, if selected, would have necessitated. Furthermore, the 

 route from Lethbridge was known to possess little of interest, 

 while that from Lara, though the longer of the two, was strange, 

 and ])ossibly miglit furnish something uncommon. 



Ouitting Lara |)romi)tly after the departure of tlic ()._;() a.m. 

 (ieelong train on the date si)ecilied, we set out at a brisk pace 

 along a metalled road trending in a westerly direction. I he 

 morning, though somewhat keen, was calm and clear, and 

 favoured a wide range of \iew ovvv the surrounding basalt 

 country, which was tlirn assuming the mantle of spring. On 

 our right the \(h\ ^'aIlgs bulked largely. In the rays of tlie 

 niitrning sun their granite bosses and seeming arid sloj)es stood 

 out i)r()ininently, and in striking contrast to the green plains 

 by which they were sui rounded. On gaining the Ripley- 



