lo O'DoNOGHUE, Rambles in Raak [vJ!*xxxiii. 



distant, and sample a billy of tea. The camp was picturesquely 

 situated among the Giant Mallee, Eucalyptus incrassata, and 

 False Spinifex, Triodia irritans, and as we reclined in various 

 negligent attitudes around the genial fire waiting for the billy 

 lid to chatter, we could discern, within the radius of light cast 

 by the leaping flames, numerous blooms of the Satin and 

 Golden Everlastings, Helichrysum leucopsidium and Helichrysum 

 hracteatum, and that the ground on which we rested was thickly 

 matted with the Austral Stonecrop, TiUcea Sieberiana, the 

 Small-leaved Poranthera, Poranthera microphylla, the Bent 

 Goodenia, Goodenia geniculata, the Pink Purslane, Calandrinia 

 calyptrata, and tufts of the Grass Cushion, Iscetopsis gramini- 

 folia. 



Before five o'clock it was possible to see our surroundings. 

 Nowingi, we found, consisted of two repairers' residences and 

 a small portable hut for the ganger. There was no platform, 

 but three rusty iron tanks, a lamp, and a red flag served to 

 mark the stopping-place. The view was limited, being bound 

 on all sides by a seeming impenetrable wall of sombre green. 

 At 6.30, to the accompaniment of the calls of the Singing Honey- 

 eater, Ptilotis sonora, and the ventriloquial notes of the Crested 

 Oreoica, Oreoica cristata, we broke camp, Johnny driving the 

 springcart laden with our goods and personal effects, we fol- 

 lowing on foot, the course being due west. 



The journey had not long begun when a call from our guide, 

 and his extended arm, directed at some object among the 

 stunted eucalypts in front, claimed our attention. Hurrying 

 forward, we discerned a pair of Plain Plover, with two young 

 ones, running away as fast as possible. On our near approach 

 the young ones secreted themselves on the sand, their immature 

 covering harmonizing perfectly with their surroundings, and 

 the old birds flew off ; but, on finding that we had located 

 their brood, they returned, and, alighting at our feet, simulated 

 injury, that we might essay to capture them, and in the effort 

 withdraw a distance suflicientlj' remote to enable their young 

 to steal away to a more favourable situation. Ignoring these 

 tactics, we picked up the chicks, to the accompaniment of many 

 peeping protests, and started them off towards their distressed 

 parents, who greeted them with manifestations of delight, and 

 lost no time in conducting them to a place of safety. 



ShortU after leaving Nowingi the mallee and spinifex, in 

 which we had sojourned for so brief a period, disappeared, and 

 was succeeded by open, well-grassed country on which the 

 Sandalwood, Myoporum platycarpum, the Needle Hake a, 

 Hakea leucoptera. Leafless Ballart, Exocarpus aphylla, Berrigan, 

 Heterodendron olecBfolium, Murray Pine, Callitris robusta, the 



