154 THE VICTOKIAN NATURALIST. 



ground, the whole head forming apparently a wedge structure, 

 which forces a hole in the ground before the fore feet are 

 brought into play. Then with its claws the animal can burrow 

 at great speed, and is quickly lost to sight. Not only this, but 

 its spines fall back smoothly when burrowing, but if the animal 

 be pulled back the spines project, and a surprising amount of 

 force is necessary to draw the beast out of the earth. The 

 animal has also the power of squeezing itself through wonder- 

 fully small apertures, its skin being very loose. Four Echidnas 

 were caught on the sea-shore, one close to the water's edge, to 

 which it was walking down from the shelter of the shrubs. 



Fraser River runs through a winding gorge, having cut its 

 way through rocks of upper silurian sandstone"^', which in this 

 part of the island have become altered by contact, doubtless,, 

 with the great mass of eruptive rocks near at hand. At the 

 mouth of the river is a curious bed — also met with further north, 

 in Sea Elephant Bay — of extremely fine sand, compact and per- 

 fectly black in colour. When examined minutely it is seen to 

 consist simply of very minute particles of quartz embedded in a 

 matrix of carbonaceous material. Possibly, the origin of this 

 curious formation may be somewhat as follows : — The finer 

 particles of sand have been gathered together and separated 

 from the coarser ones by the well-known action of wind. By 

 some means or other this seolian formation has come in contact 

 with boggy water, dark coloured, as is most of the water on the 

 island at the present time ; the fine sand has acted as a filter, 

 with the result that the carbonaceous material (nearly pure 

 carbon, apparently) now forms a matrix binding the quartz par- 

 ticles together. 



The Fraser River forms a boundary between two kinds of 

 country. To the north lies, more or less, open, undulating land ; 

 to the south are dense forests stretching westward fully half-way 

 across the island, and southward as far as Mount Stanley. 

 Birds, apparently, were rather scarce. The principal ones cap- 

 tured in this part of the island were the allied diamond bird, 

 the New Holland and Tasmanian honey-eaters, the spine-billed 

 honey-eater, the black-capped honey-eater, the welcome 

 swallow, the Tasmanian cuckoo-shrike, the yellow-bellied paro- 

 quet, the pallid and fan-tailed cuckoos, and the white-bellied 

 sea-eagle. In the woods the white cockatoo was seen, but not 

 secured. The forest is comprised most largely of blue-gum, 

 with coast ti-tree immediately on the shore, and more inland 

 blackwood, musk, sassafras, and hazel. 



Going still further southwards along the shore, the nature of 

 the coast changes completely. The sandy beach gives place to 

 outcrops of hard rock, worn jagged by the action of wind and 

 water. The forest comes down to the water's edge until after 



* The mineralogical specimens have very kindly been identified by Mr. Rule, of the 

 Technological Museum. 



