ANIMALS ON MOUNT REMARKABLE 105 



very steep. In the crevices the mosses cluster in tangled 

 masses, and are usually intermingled with lovely coloured 

 and shaped wild flowers in great variety. In the hills, as 

 on the plains, the forest is nearly always of an open 

 character, and offers no impediment to the traveller's 

 movements. 



Mount Remarkable rises about three thousand three 

 or four hundred feet above sea-level (the base is but a 

 very few feet above the surface of Spencer Gulf) ; and the 

 Devil's Peak seems to be of not much less elevation. 

 Both mountains are often enveloped in clouds, which 

 float more than halfway down their sides, and both have 

 occasionally shown a thick layer of snow on their 

 summits ; but the climate, generally, on the plains below 

 is hot, which is the cause, probably, that several small 

 townships and many lone homesteads have sought shelter 

 in the gullies of the range, or close to the bases of some of 

 the loftiest peaks. 



The echidna is found in some parts of Flinder's range ; 

 but I could nowhere find or hear of the duck-bill in the 

 Port Augusta district. There are traditions of the emu 

 having been abundant once ; but it is now rarely seen 

 until the traveller gets much further north than the head 

 of the gulf. The ubiquitous rabbit is not unknown, as 

 many of the settlers will tell one with a rueful tone of 

 voice ; but in the mountains the rock-wallaby is by far the 

 most abundant of animals, and yet it is a much persecuted 

 creature. Rock-wallaby shooting is a favourite sport with 

 all classes of colonists ; and it is a sport. He who would 

 make a good bag of rock-wallaby must exert himself to do 

 so. The game lives in difficult ground, where the sports- 

 man is continually climbing up or down, is very quick in 

 its movements, and gives no more chance to the gunner 

 than a rabbit in thick cover. 



The rock-wallaby of Flinder's range is Petrogale 

 xanthoptis, which is the largest animal of the family, being 

 about thirty inches long, exclusive of the tail which is 

 about twenty-five inches. These animals seem to have 

 undergone considerable modification from the ordinary 



