THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 107 



.also the valley, which I named the Valley of the Carson. This 

 river, I should say, was the head of a river flowing into the sea 

 -about due north from this point. Followed river down two 

 miles, where we camped on the right bank in the best and 

 thickest grasses I ever beheld — blue, Mitchell, and kangaroo 

 grasses. Every indication of gold. Here quartz abounds, and 

 I think eventually this valley will be a massive goldfield. 

 Timber splendid : large gums. Soil very dark chocolate, the 

 darkest I have ever seen. The horses having had a long stage 

 to-day, it is my intention to stop here all to-morrow on such 

 bountiful feed. One of my party saw four blackfellows to-day, 

 and we also passed an old camp. I have named the ridge we 

 have just crossed, in the above latitude and longitude, the 

 Ashton Range, after a friend of mine in Melbourne. Although 

 a very heavy range ; owing to the table-land on the east side, it 

 is only visible on the west, or I might say from the S.W, to north, 

 and then from the Valley of the Carson in all its splendour. 



" Grasses — Blue, Mitchell's, kangaroo, and a new variety. 

 Timber — Iron-bark, Blood-wood, Stringy-bark and other 

 gums, and pine. Distance — 20 miles." 



A New Plumularia. — In a paper on the Hydroida, recently 

 laid before the Royal Society of Victoria by Mr. W. M. Bale, 

 there appears a description of the new species of Plumularia 

 exhibited at a late meeting of the club by Mr. H. Watts, and 

 named after him Plumularia Wattsii. The specimens were 

 dredged in the South Channel of Port Phillip, and may be 

 readily distinguished from all the Victorian species already 

 known by the habit. The shoots attain a height of about ten 

 inches, and consist of a main stem, which is slender and 

 monosiphonic, divided into regular internodes, and scarcely 

 varying in thickness from base to summit. The branches are 

 borne one on each internode of the stem, and are arranged in 

 an irregular spiral. They are about an inch long, and often 

 bear one or two secondary branchlets as well as the pinnae. 

 The calycles are cup-shaped, and adnate to the pinnae, and are 

 surrounded, as in most Plumularia, by three nematophores, 

 which are all moveable. Between every two hydrothecas is a 

 short internode, bearing a nematophore only. P. Wattsii is 

 considerably larger than any other known Victorian species. 



Town Gathering of Micro-Objects. — Mr. H. Watts 

 hands in the following record of his collection (October) from 

 the Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens : — Algae, CEdogoniicm capil- 

 lare, Spirogyra decimina, Sp. inajuscula. Conferva tenerrima, 

 C. affinis, Vaiicheria sessilis, Stigeoclotiium eloiigatuin, St. tenue 

 Bulbochate setigera ; Desmids, Fragillaria capucina, Didymopriuvi 

 sp., Closterium acerosum, C. lunula, Micrasterias cre?tata, Anki- 

 ^trodesmus sp., Staurastnim sp. 



