THE DEVIL-DEVIL. 55 



ing, as this does, with hollow decayed trees. Our com- 

 mon bat was a little larger than the large variety of 

 British bat, and we had two smaller species. The great 

 vampyre-bat is, I believe, met with in the Straits ; but I 

 never saw one, although I have heard of its being killed 

 near Melbourne. The most extraordinary shot I ever 

 made in my life was here, when I shot a bat and a large 

 moth at a right-and-left shot. 



Two other animals the Devil-Demi, and the mys- 

 terious Bunyip are met with at the present day in the 

 wild swamps of Gipps' Land, according to the blacks. I 

 need scarcely say that I never saw either. From what I 

 can learn, there is a small species of panther, or wild cat, 

 in Van Diemen's Land, which the blacks call the devil- 

 devil, but it is not met with here ; and as to the bunyip, 

 I suspect it exists only in the imagination of the abori- 

 gines. Still I have heard old hands affirm, with the most 

 extravagant oaths, such as an old hand only can invent, 

 that they have stood face to face with the bunyip in tea- 

 tree scrub ; and they describe it as a large animal, like a 

 polled cow, with carnivorous teeth. 



On some of the islands in Western-port Bay, and along 

 the coast, the common wild English rabbit has been 

 turned out, and thriven well ; and I believe, in many 

 places out here, a rabbit-warren, properly looked after, 

 would pay better than any cultivation. There is much 

 poor hungry soil in Port Phillip, which is of little use for 

 the plough, and less for pasture, mostly scrub and sand, 

 but where many English esculents would grow, if planted 



