78 The South Australian Naturalist. 



These totals would represent a minimum on each occasion, 

 and care was taken to avoid duplication. The most numerous 

 species were, in order of number : — First trip : Babblers, tit- 

 warblers, honey eaters, robins. Second trip : Parrots, honey 

 eaters, babblers, tit-warblers. Third trip : Tit-warblers, 

 babblers, honey eaters, robins. Fourth trip: Tit-warblers, 

 babblers, robins, parrots. On the fourth trip the mallee trees 

 had, in the main, finished flowering, and I only saw twenty 

 honey eaters. 



The gem of the birds there is the red-capped robin, and 

 the next in beauty was the spiny-cheeked honey eater, which 

 was very combative towards the other honey eaters, though 

 you could get within six feet of one. There appears to be three 

 pairs of scrub robins in the thickest part of the stony scrub, 

 and it is difficult to observe them. The only occasion on which 

 I have seen them in a tree was on the first trip, and that was 

 the only time they gave their peculiar loud call. The bronze- 

 wing pigeons are very wary, and it is difficult to get near to 

 them. On three of the trips I have tried to get near to the 

 bell-bird, but without success, although I devoted one hour 

 and a half to that end on the second trip. 



LICHENS. 



"As in one sense the humblest, in another they are the 

 most honoured of the earth-children. Unfading as motionless, 

 the worm frets them not, and the autumn wastes not. Strong 

 in loveliness, they neither blanch in heat, nor pine in frost. 

 To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the 

 weaving of the dark, eternal tapestries of the hills; to them, 

 slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their endless 

 imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, 

 they share also its endurance ; and while the wings of depart- 

 ing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted 

 snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow the drooping 

 of its cowslip gold — far above, among the mountains, the silver 

 lichen spots rest, starlike, on the stone: and the gathering 

 orange stain, upon the edge of yonder western peak, reflects 

 the sunsets of a thousand years." 



— John R-uskiu. 



