LIMESTONE CAVES. 189 



herd's purse," {Thlaspi hirsa pastoris,) were 

 abundant, and they are seen very far in the 

 interior beyond this place. 



Some caves have been lately found in the 

 limestone rocks about this selection; and since 

 the valuable discovery of fossil bones in those 

 at Wellington Valley, by Major Mitchell and 

 others, limestone caverns have become one of 

 the colonial lions ; these, therefore, were pointed 

 out to me as objects of great curiosity ; I found 

 them however very small, and they did not 

 repay the trouble of getting into them. They 

 resembled the small caves often seen in the 

 limestone quarries of Plymouth and Oreston, 

 in Devonshire, from which some valuable fos- 

 sils have been procured : stalactites of course 

 abounded, but neither fossils nor any red cal- 

 careous earth, in which those remains have 

 usually been found deposited. Among a quantity 

 of dust were several loose bones, which had been 

 at first described to me as fossils, but which 

 were the breast bones and tibiee of the emu, and 

 skulls, and other bones of dogs, which no doubt 

 had been placed there by the natives, for the 

 tibiae of the emu (here called Bereban by the 

 blacks) had a hole at the upper and anterior 

 part ; this perforation is made, as many of them 



