SOME OLD INHABITANTS. 375 



the mud and water. The settlers term him characteristically " the 

 River-Mole." 



A word of allusion must now be permitted to the Petrogale, a 

 genus of the Kangaroo family, described by Dr. Gray. The Brush- 

 tailed Rock Wallaby (P. penicittata) has a rough long fur, of a 

 dusky brown hue, tinged with red and gray ; a white streak passes 

 down the middle of the throat ; his tail is very black, like a raven's 

 plumage, long, and furnished with thick hairs forming a brush. The 

 male is about three feet and a half long. Another species is called 

 the Short-Eared Rock Kangaroo (P. brachiotis). Both are excessively 

 wild and shy in their habits, frequenting in the day-time the most 

 inaccessible rocks and the loftiest mountain-peaks, and descending, at 

 the approach of twilight, to feed in the retired and grassy valleys. 

 They flock together in such numbers as to form well-beaten paths 

 along the mountain-sides, and leap from crag to crag with all the 

 agility of the chamois. 



The Ornithological Fauna of Australia and the islands of Oceania 

 is incomparably richer than the Mammalogies! Fauna, and includes 

 several species of the most dazzling plumage ; but nearly all these 

 species inhabit the forests which cover a part of the littoral and 

 probably of the interior. However we must signalize, as peculiar to 

 the Prairies, a great number of the Brevipennes (i.e., Short-wings), 

 the Emu or Emeu (Dromaius Novce Hollandice) ; two Palmipeds, 

 the Black Swan and the Cereopsis ; and, finally, a bird, the only 

 one of its order, almost as much of a paradox among bipeds as is the 

 ornithorhynchus among quadrupeds, the Apteryx. 



The Emu is allied to the cassowary ; he is nearly equal to the 

 ostrich in bulk, but has a thicker body, shorter legs, and a shorter 

 neck. He measures more than seven feet in length ; his plumage 

 exhibits a mixture of brown and gray ; his beak is black, his head 

 covered with feathers; he has real wings, though they are of so small 

 a size as to be useless for flight ; they are covered with feathers 

 like the rest of the body, from which, when the bird is not in motion, 



