228 NEW riUUTll WALES. 



with wild animals ; but now the emu is banished 

 to a long distance, and the kangaroo is become 

 scarce : to both the English gi'eyhound has been 

 highly destructive. It may be long before these 

 animals are altogether exterminated, but their 

 doom is fixed. The aborigines are always anx- 

 ious to borrow the dogs from the farm-houses : the 

 use of them, the oftal when an animal is killed, and 

 some milk from the cows, are the jaeace-offerings 

 of the settlers, who push farther and farther to- 

 wards the interior. The thoughtless aboriginal, 

 blinded by these trifling advantages, is delighted 

 at the approach of the white man, who seems pre- 

 destined to inherit the country of his children. 



Although having poor sport, we enjoyed a pleas- 

 ant ride. The woodland is generally so open that 

 a person on hoi'seback can gallop through it. It 

 is traversed by a few flat-bottomed valleys, which 

 are green and free from trees : in such spots the 

 scenery was pretty, like that of a park. In the 

 whole country I scarcely saw a place without the 

 marks of a Are ; whether these had been more or 

 less recent — whether the stumps were more or less 

 black — was the greatest change which varied the 

 uniformity, so wearisome to the traveller's eye. 

 In these woods there are not many birds ; I saw, 

 however, some large flocks of the white cockatoo 

 feeding in a corn-field, and a few most beautiful 

 parrots ; crows like our jackdaws were not un- 

 common, and another bird something like the mag- 

 pie. In the dusk of the evening 1 took a stroll 

 along a chain of ponds, which in this dry country 

 represented the course of a river, and had the 

 good fortune to sec several of the famous Orni- 

 thorhynchus paradoxus. They were diving and 

 playing about the surface of the water, but showed 

 so little of their bodies that they might easily have 



