332 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



waiting, with an eagerness that generally characterizes all 

 my proceedings, I fired both barrels in what I considered the 

 direction of the moving object, and had the satisfaction, or 

 rather the mortification, of seeing a magnificent cock bird, 

 with tail erect, arid a lyre that would have thrown Apollo's 

 completely into the shade, emerge from the tufted grass, and 

 dart into the jungle. I threw my gun down in a transport 

 of disappointment, and by a curious coincidence a laughing 

 jackass in proprid persond, and not by his deputy the lyre- 

 bird, which was no doubt too much frightened to be imper- 

 tinent, burst out into a loud guffaw on the branch of a tree 

 hard by. Most undoubtedly, had I been loaded, I should 

 have changed his tone in rather a more effectual way than I 

 had succeeded in doing with his imitator, but as it was, I had 

 nothing to do but to retrace my steps, crestfallen, but with a 

 good appetite, to the station, and its attendant breakfast. 



This day, which turned out rather wet and stormy, we 

 devoted entirely to snipe-shooting, and in the afternoon 

 returned at a rapid pace, and with all that spirit and 

 endurance colonial horses are capable of, to Melbourne. 



This, with the exception of a little bream-fishing in some 

 of the salt-water creeks, and occasionally whipping the 

 Yarra-Yarra where it becomes a clear and rapid stream, 

 some miles above Melbourne, with a small palmer-fly, for 

 a kind of diminutive fish, rarely exceeding half a pound, 

 between a trout and a herring, comprised the whole of my 

 sporting adventures at that early period in the neighbourhood 

 of the capital of Victoria. A very short time subsequently 

 I was appointed police-magistrate at the gold-fields of 

 Ballarat, and there, in the interim of my official duties, I 

 hoped to be able to gain more insight into the few sporting 

 capabilities that this new and extraordinary country presents 

 to a stranger. 



On a fine spring morning, having cleared the city, and 



