August, 

 1913 



1 Field Naturalists' Club — Proceedings. 63 



the Pink Lakes creating" much interest. His notes were made 

 during an official journey through the Mallee in October. 

 1910, in which Mr. Kenyon, on behalf of the Water Supply 

 and Agricultural Departments, sought new fields for settle- 

 ment (to be preceded by boring operations), while he col- 

 lected botanical information for the State Forest Department. 

 The journey of over one hundred miles in buggy and on horse- 

 back was described, and many notes on the trees and more 

 conspicuous shrubs given, the journey being too rapid to 

 allow of attention being devoted to the less noticeable plants. 

 Generally speaking, there lies to the north of the newly-con- 

 structed Ouyen to Murrayville railway an inhospitable tract 

 of country, reaching up to within about twenty miles of the 

 Murray River, the country around Pink Lakes and Mount 

 Guar being about the limit of the cultivable belt through 

 which the railway now runs. Settlement further north «s 

 checked on account of the water supply difficulty. Mr. Ken- 

 yon had tapped water near the foot of Mount Guar, but failed 

 elsewhere northerly, though the bore had been put down over 

 TOO feet. 



Mr. Hardy exhibited a plan of the Mallee country, on which 

 he pointed out the different routes taken by members of the 

 club since 1887, in all of which the Mallee had been entered 

 from the south. These visits had been made by Messrs. C 

 French, sen., D. Le Souef, C. French, jun., C. Walter, D. 

 Best, A. G. Campbell, J. C. Goudie, A. H. E. Mattingley, 

 and Dr. C. S. Sutton, and their papers, scattered through the 

 volumes of the Victorian Naturalist, taken together, formed 

 a splendid record of a most interesting portion of the State. 



The chairman said that members w^ere indebted to the 

 author for the very interesting- description of Mallee vegeta 

 tion, which was enhanced by the fine series of pictures shown, 

 and remarked that, though animal life was reported scarce, 

 the INIallee contained many species of birds, reptiles, and in- 

 sects, some of them rare or peculiar to that portion of 

 Victoria. 



NATURAL HISTORY NOTE. 



Mr. F, Chapman, A.L.S., called attention to his exhibit 

 of a fruiting branch of the Japanese Cedar, Cryptomcria 

 Japonica, which sefved as an illustration of the interesting 

 relationship of the Cypresses, along with some true Arau- 

 carias, to various leafy branches and cones found in the 

 Jurassic coal-measures of Jumbunna and Wonthaggi, in 

 South Gippsland. A fossil representative of the genus 

 Cryptomeria is represented by the C. Sternbergi, Gardner, 

 of the Eocene beds of Antrim and the Island of Mull. 

 Probably the Araucarias in their restricted sense embrace the 

 larger part of our Jurassic conifers of South Gippsland, such 



