CHAPTER XL 



VICTORIA. NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Excursions into the Bush near Melbourne. Opossum Snare. Tracks of 

 the Aborigines on Tree trunks. Town of Sandhurst. The Highest 

 Tree in the World. Aborigines on a Government Reserve. Orni- 

 thorynchus paradoxus. Leaves of Australian Trees, why Vertically 

 Disposed. Fur-Seal in the Open Sea. Sydney Harbour. The Blue 

 Mountains. Excavations in the Ground caused by Rain. Shooting 

 Opossums by Moonlight. Fruit-eating Bats. Hunting Bandicoots. 

 Browera Creek. Intimate Relation of Land and Sea Animals. 

 Geological Import of this. Medusae in Fresh Water. Kitchen 

 Middens. Drawings by Aborigines. Handmarks. Trigonia and 

 Cestracion. 



Melbourne, March 17th to April 1st, 1874. — We sighted 

 Port Otway in a glassy calm, and steamed past Hobson's Bay 

 Heads into Port Phillip on March 17th, and anchored off 

 Sandridge, the seaport suburb of Melbourne. 



The English house sparrow may be seen quite at home on 

 the beach at Sandridge in flocks, picking up the refuse from 

 the ships, and also about Melbourne generally. The bird is 

 beginning to be a pest to the Acclimatization Society which 

 introduced it, and finding good food in the cages of the 

 animals in the Society's Gardens, refuses to leave them, but 

 consorts with the parrots in the trees and bushes, and steals 

 the food on every opportunity. 



I made three excursions from Melbourne. The first was 

 with Mr. Stephenson, the chief of the railway department, to 

 a piece of wild bush-land belonging to him, about 25 miles 

 distant from the city. We started with our host in a light 

 bush waggon, with materials for camping out. We were not 

 seven miles away from the city before the road became a sort 

 of slough, through which the horses could hardly drag the 

 waggon, although we all got out ; and before we reached a 

 camping ground it was pitch dark, and one of the springs was 

 broken. 



We had some difficulty in finding our way in the bit of bush 

 to the best camping place, and then in finding the water hole 

 and leading the horses to it. We set fire to a great fallen log, 



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