^o?-'] O'Donohue, Wanderings on the Manny Flood-Plain. 9 



Monday, 7th September, found us early astir, and in a short 

 time ready and eager to commence the initial stage of our 

 journey ; but, despite our best efforts, it was not until Q.45 

 that our unicorn team was headed due south along a thorough- 

 fare lined on either side by comfortable dwellings, whose 

 investure of vines evidenced, by their tender green appearance, 

 the advent of spring. The road being good, and the horses 

 fresh and willing, we made rapid progress, and soon reached 

 the settlement's southern cultivation limit, in the neighbour- 

 hood of a large " billabong." Descending a short, steep slope, 

 we found ourselves on the flood-plain of the Murray, a dreary, 

 sun-parched, mud-coated area dotted with innumerable stumps, 

 and strewn with the litter of a once dense box forest. 



With the exception of a few sparse growths of Tangled 

 Lignum, M uehlenbeckia Cunninghami, no living bush or plant 

 was to be seen. In this inhospitable area scores of miserable 

 sheep tottered aimlessly about in single file, nibbling at each 

 other's wool, or chewing twigs and dry gum leaves in vain 

 effort to assuage the pangs of hunger and to stave off 

 approaching dissolution. From such a scene as this the eye 

 insensibly turned for relief to the serried ranks of the luxuriant 

 and giant Red Gums, Eucalyptus rostrata, that margined the 

 river on our immediate left, or to the long, irregular line of 

 mucronated pine-tops that stood out sharply against the sky 

 line, some miles distant, on our right. As we progressed the 

 lignum bushes increased in number, and among them occurred 

 gnarled specimens of the Eumong Acacia, Acacia stenophylla. 

 These, as the stiff clay was succeeded by a more arenaceous 

 formation, were supplanted by the Murray Pine, Callitris 

 robusta, and the Ming Quandong. Fusanus (Saula/iuii) 

 persicarius, and by dense thickets of the sea-green Tree 

 Tobacco, Nicotiana glauca. Amid the growths of this 

 naturalized alien (rested Pigeons, Ocyphaps lophotes, were to 

 be counted in scores, and it would seem that they contribute 

 largely to its spread by consuming and subsequently dissemin- 

 ating its seeds. 



At noon we reached a temporarily deserted wood-getters' 

 camp, situated on the Murray. Here we decided to rest ami 

 feed the horses and to partake of some refreshment. Whilst 

 lunching we woe entertained by (iilbeit's Thickhead, Pachy- 

 cephala gilberti, and by the Brown Fly-catcher, Micrceca 

 fascinans, the lattei repeatedly favouring us with its rapid 

 series oi pleasing notes from the Limb of a low tree close to the 

 lamp. The Spotted Bower-bird, Chlamydodera maculata, and 

 the Peaceful Dove, Geopelia tranquilla, were noted hereabouts, 

 and also a large specimen of the I. ace Lizard, Varanus varius. 



Alter an hour's rest we resumed our journey, and diverged 



