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The South Australian Naturalist. 



THE MURRAY TRIP.— EASTER, 1919. 



Last Easter a number of members of the Field Naturalists' 

 Club, under the leadership of Mr. E. H. Lock, spent a pleasant 

 vacation camping out on the banks of the Murray River, east- 

 wai'd of the river port of Morgan, where our great river takes 

 its f/ariously sudden turn southward to the sea. There was 

 abundant matter for interest for the naturalists in birds, fish, 

 insects, plants, and fossils. Li riddition, there was the ever- 

 present beauty of the river, with the wondrous variety of form 

 and colour in its brown and yellow limestone cliffs, and the 

 characteristic beauty of broad red-gum flats and placid billa- 

 bongs. Above the cliffs, and coming right to their edges, was 

 the Avide expanse of the Mallee, with its fauna and flora totally 

 distinct from those of the flats. Unfortunately, the river was 

 low, and in certain parts of the river shoals Avere many. Fre- 

 quently, on our motor-boat trips, the more aquatic members of 

 the party w^ere forced to strip, and so push the boat to deep 

 water and satiety. 



Our headquarters were at New Era, the site of one of the 

 many efforts at Communistic settlements made along the banks 

 of the Lower Murray. Now, excei)ting for some stone build- 

 ings, cemented channels, etc., nothing but the significant name 

 of this settlement remains to tell us of the high hopes of the 

 early settlers. The work is not lost, however, but has been 

 taken up and extended; the adjoining settlement of Cadell 

 shows considerable promise of becoming an important centre. 

 It is with Cadell, and particularly with the rock section show^n 

 at the rear of the pumping-station there, that these notes par- 

 ticularly deal. The river cliff has been cut away to make room 

 for the pumping plant, and the cliff' face now visible in the cut 



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