1 86 Whitlock, Oii the East Murchison. [ .?a1;i 



that there is a considerable population living within a couple of 

 miles of some of my best hunting-grounds. From an elevation 

 near Wiluna I could see the gleam of a large body of water about 

 four miles away, and I bent my steps in that direction. It was 

 a good hour's walk over the rough, stony ground, but the country 

 I traversed, after my Lake Austin experiences, seemed quite 

 familiar — the same shallow creeks running down to the lake, 

 with outcrops of quartz or ironstone, and a gradual dying out of 

 shrubs and bushes, which eventually gave way to herbaceous 

 plants of the Salsolacece, Hibisci, and the very abundant 

 samphires. The birds were characteristic too — Acanthiza, 

 XeropJiila, Cinclosonia, Malurus, Tceniopygia, Oreoica, Glycypliila, 

 Sphenostojua, EpJitJiianura, and a few others common to the 

 surrounding district. I was not long in finding a nest. In a 

 clump of dwarf tea-tree scrub I flushed a GlycypJiila from her 

 nest with two eggs. These proved to be eggs of G. albifrons ; 

 they afterwards frequently came in my way. This was 

 encouraging, showing that the breeding season had already 

 commenced. I found Lake Violet contained a large volume of 

 water, the largest sheet averaging perhaps a mile in width by a 

 mile and a half in length, with various arms and channels 

 penetrating the surrounding flats or sand-hills. I worked this 

 country with more or less success, and also the scrubs to the 

 west and north-west of Wiluna, until 29th July, when I left for 

 Bore Well and the adjacent spinifex plain, lying about 30 miles 

 to the west of Wiluna, and where, as before mentioned, I had 

 seen the Amytornis and Stipiturus. I put in a fortnight there, 

 but, finding myself too early for nests and eggs of either species, 

 I returned to Wiluna on 15th August, and again worked the 

 neighbourhood of Lake Violet. Having previously found a nice 

 pool of fresh water in a creek, I camped beside it, in what 

 shelter I could find. I remained at this camp until the end of 

 the month, meeting with fair success in the interim. I then 

 returned to the attack at Bore Well, and this time met with 

 better success, as will be shown in the sequel. 



On 17th September I was back in Wiluna, preparatory to 

 setting out to a sheet of water known as Milly Pool, some 20 

 miles or thereabouts to the north-west of the township, and 

 lying on the stock route from Peak Hill and the Gascoyne and 

 Ashburton Rivers. The country here was vastly different from 

 anything I had previously met with on the Murchison goldfield. 

 Eucalypts were abundant and of two or three species — one 

 locally known as the flooded or river gum, the second a York 

 gum, and the third known as blackheart. Some of these trees 

 attained to considerable dimensions, and the majority, alas ! 

 were unclimbable without special preparations and assistance. 

 Milly Pool itself was a depression in an extensive plain, some- 

 what resembling an almost effaced river-bed. The water it 



