J. MURRAY 



The bush was cheerful with the whistling and chattering of parrots of many 

 sorts and sizes, and of crows and magpies. Sometimes an isolated gum-tree would 

 be seen loaded with white cockatoos, looking at a distance like blossom. As we 

 approached the 5000 feet level the signs of a moister climate gradually increased. 

 Mosses appeared, and became increasingly plentiful. As we topped the rise, at some- 

 what over 5000 feet, we came out on a stretch of moorland, apparently covered with 

 heather and familiar heath-plants and mosses. Dr. Mackay ran down and gathered 

 some of the seeming heather and other plants. They were all strange and foreign, 

 as was only to be expected. The purple-tipped heather was not a plant in bloom 

 at all, but was something like Vaccinium with the young leaves purplish brown. 

 The peat-mosses (Sphagnum) were genuine and proved that we had reached a 

 temperate clime, where a rich harvest of water-bears and other animals was to be 

 looked for, and this anticipation was not disappointed. 



Dr. Mackay went on and ascended Mount Kosciusko itself, but as the journey 

 was made on horseback there was no chance to gather moss on the highest point of 

 land on the Australian Continent. A great deal of moss was collected on lesser 

 peaks, between 5000 and 6000 feet in height. The mosses afterwards yielded many 

 water-bears, including two interesting species which are new to science (Echiniscus 

 jmlcher and Macrobiotics aculeatus). 



On the trip to the Blue Mountains Mr. Goddard kindly accompanied me as 

 guide. It was a hurried visit, as only two days could be given up to it. At 

 Katoomba, where we stayed, at an elevation of something like 3000 feet, the air 

 was invigorating, but the sun was hot, the earth was scorched, and no moss was to 

 be seen. But Mr. Goddard had good reason for selecting Katoomba. It lies close- 

 to the edge of the wonderful sunken valley, between 1000 and 2000 feet in depth, 

 bounded by vertical precipices. Little gullies, leading to the valley bottom, have 

 been utilised for the making of stairways, by which access is now easy. In these 

 shady gullies there are trickles of water and plenty of moss, including even 

 Sphagnum and Laucobryum (or a plant which looks like it). 



On the day of our arrival we descended one of the stairways, some 2000 steps, 

 and, after traversing a part of the bush in the valley, ascended near the Falls of 

 Leura. The trees in the valley, as well as boulders and rocks, were often festooned 

 with slender hanging branches of a pleurocarpous moss. Returning home, a first 

 examination of the moss was made. On glancing at the field of the microscope there 

 immediately met the eye a very remarkable Bdelloid rotifer (Callidina mirabilis, 

 described in a subsequent number of this publication) and several other strange 

 beasts were discovered on this cursory examination, including some water-bears. It 

 was an index of what we were to expect from the Katoomba collections. We had 

 reached our best collecting-ground in Australia. For long afterwards the moss 

 continued to produce good things whenever examined, and it was a year afterwards 

 that the best find of all was made, a new generic type of Tardigrade, which has been 



