THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 55 
right by the foot of the mountains, the tops of which were now 
covered with a wide flat cap of clouds. It then turned to the right 
through a saddle in Mount Leonard, and in three miles, after cross- 
ing two creeks and several gullies and their intervening ridges, 
descended again to the beach on the shore of Leonard Bay. The 
mountains near the sea were for the most part bare of timber, though 
there were occasional belts and patches, especially in the gullies, of 
no great height, and strewn here and there with granite boulders of 
all shapes and sizes. The water we crossed after leaving the Derby 
was very good. That at the mouth of the latter stream was other- 
wise, the spring tide apparently rising into the marshes. After 
making the shore of Leonard Bay, we again kept to the waters edge 
along the hard white sand for half-a-mile, when we came to a steep 
range jutting out into the sea in a point called Pillar Point. Over 
this the track went and descended on the other side. At its base 
ran a stream called the Tidal River, which we crossed and camped 
for the night on the grassy flats opposite. We had come fifteen 
miles from Yanakie and five from the Derby. 
We were now on the shore of Norman Bay. To the north-east, 
looking up the valley, the view was closed by the densely-wooded 
slopes of Mount La Trobe, rising to a height of 2400 feet. To the 
north was Mount Bishop, say 1000 feet lower, a spur of which we 
had just crossed. It was strewn with boulders, and ran down 
in a steep slope covered with brushwood, the foot of which was 
washed by the Tidal River. A spur from Mount Oberon formed the 
southern boundary of Norman Bay. 
Starting the next morning, we left the telegraph line and turned 
towards a saddle in the spur last named, locally known as the bad 
saddle. A steep and slippery track led up to a narrow pass between 
two conical peaks. On reaching this point the party divided, two of 
us turned to the left, towards the summit of Mount Oberon, the 
third, preferring to collect shells, led the horse down to the beach on 
the other side of the saddle. Keeping along the spur we met with 
no great difficulty beyond some dense serub in the hollows. On the 
top of the mountain, fortunately, some tall boulders rose above this, 
and so gaye a look-out all round, except where the view was shut in 
by the higher masses of Mount La Trobe and Mount Wilson. We 
were about 2000 feet above the sea, and about a mile from the 
water’s edge. It would take long to describe the view of peaks and 
islands, and the vast expanse of sea and sky which rewarded our 
climb. We descended by a steep gully down which trickled a 
stream of water from a spring, of which we drank as it flowed from 
the rock. Continuing our march the track now skirted that part of 
Oberon Bay, locally known as the Little Bay, and crossing another 
rocky spur, came out on the sands of the Great Bay, as the larger 
division of Oberon Bay is locally called. The mountains here recede 
