202 ABSTINENCE FROM WATER. [CHAP.VI. 



candles to keep them from melting away : they planted 

 seeds in the bed of the creek, but the sun burnt them 

 to cinders the moment they appeared above the ground: 

 at three o'clock one afternoon the mercury in a thermo- 

 meter fixed behind a tree about five feet from the ground, 

 was standing at 132; on removing it into the sun it 

 rose to 157! [and yet we complain, if we fall in with 

 the cool temperature of 80 :] a thermometer, graduated 

 only to 127, was placed in the fork of a tree, sheltered 

 alike from the wind and the sun, the mercury being 

 then up to 125; an hour afterwards its further expan- 

 sion had burst the bulb of the instrument. In the 

 midst of this fiery furnace, the intense and oppressive 

 heat of which Captain Sturt cannot find language to 

 describe, a few native savages contrive to exist by shift- 

 ing about from creek to mud-pool ; and here also the 

 Crested Pigeon delights to dwell. " In riding amongst 

 some rocky ground, we shot a new and beautiful little 

 Pigeon, with a long crest (Geophaps plumifera). The 

 habits of this bird were very singular, for it never 

 perched on the trees, but on the highest and most 

 exposed rocks, in what must have been an intense heat ; 

 its flight was short, like that of a Quail, and it ran in 

 the same manner through the grass when feeding in the 

 evening." 



We shall notice the faculty which certain Australian 

 Kingfishers possess of living without water to drink ; a 

 similar power of abstinence is to a degree enjoyed 

 (shall we say ?) by other inhabitants of the same ter- 

 rible wastes, for which the words arid, desert, inhospit- 

 able, are far too feeble epithets. The Talpero, Hapa- 

 tolis Mitchelii, an animal with many of the habits of 

 our rabbit, but not much larger than a mouse, must live 



