THE DANDENONG EANGES. 327 



we found the ground sloping to the southward, and some 

 small lakes, and swampy hollows, with reeds and high grass 

 in them. Wild ducks of several descriptions were swim- 

 ming in the lakes, and we frequently roused from the grassy 

 swamps we were traversing a very large and peculiar species, 

 which is here called the " mountain duck." We now left our 

 horses under the charge of one of our host's stockmen, and 

 proceeded to the business of the day. We found snipe in 

 abundance, but the ducks were very wild ; and after making 

 up a good bag of the former birds, we continued our route 

 towards a much larger lake, at some further distance, where 

 black swan and wild geese were said to resort, and I had 

 now for the first time in my life an opportunity of wit- 

 nessing the great variety and beauty of the parrot tribe in 

 the forests of Australia, as they flashed by us screaming and 

 darting in every direction, from the small grass parrot, not 

 larger than a sparrow, to the beautiful lemon-crested cocka- 

 too, and others, of all the colours of the rainbow. 



These birds, indeed, are made use of by hungry emigrants, 

 and even others, as an article of food, and I have known 

 parrot-pie even esteemed a delicacy by some; but I must 

 own, from my experience, that I have always considered it 

 to be a very tough and tasteless esculent, and that I have 

 not been able to appreciate even the superior excellence of 

 that bush delicacy, cockatoo soup. The waters of the lake of 

 which we were in search began now to glisten through the 

 trees, and I could distinctly make out, through a vista in the 

 foliage, a noble troop of black swans, swimming in graceful 

 single file at no great distance from the edge of the bank we 

 were approaching. Wild-fowl were reposing upon or skimming 

 over the surface of the waters, and here and there a solitary 

 pelican was standing in quiet contemplation on some remote 

 promontory or isolated rock. One of oiir party had brought 

 his rifle with him, and was well known as an excellent 



