THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 89 
and now and again the piping of the lyre birds aroused our flagging 
spirits as our day’s march drew to its close, but we never saw the 
birds themselves. The tameness of the lizards was remarkable.~ A 
rather large Hinulia on one occasion climbed shyly on to the knee of 
one of us to obtain fragments of the lunch he was eating. It was 
noticeable too, the ease with which they piloted a semi-aerial course 
along the fronds and branches of Pteris incisa, &c.. We were not 
“much troubled with the Leeches, and were warned by the presence 
of the Wire-grass when to expect them. We observed very few 
insects, among the Hill Butterfly, Hipparchia. 
The heaths and swampy plains were characterised by the preval- 
ence of the Xanthorrheas, the great and small Grass Lilies, Xyris 
gracilis, Limnanthemum exaltatum, Prasophyllum sp., white and 
blue-flowered forms of Dianella revoluta, large patches of the Coral 
Fern, Aibbertia angustifolia, large-flowered specimens of Utricularia 
dichotoma, were the most conspicuous of the swamp flora. Sprengelia 
incarnata and Hpacris microphylla occupied dry knolls, and the low 
ridges which separated the creeks near Foster. Here. too, we found 
Helichrysum Baxteri, which Baron yon Mueller informs us, has not 
been found so far South before. It was plentiful. An entomologist 
would find the country between Foster and Yanakie Station 
peculiarly rich in Lepidoptera. From Yanakie fences to the Tarwin 
settlement our surroundings were desolate. Yet even here we found 
objects of interest. Every few hundred yards we startled a Grass 
Parrakeet, and were glad to see this rare game bird in such 
abundance. Big black wallaby, (H. walabutus), dashed off into the 
scrub, leaping for their lives, as we disturbed their lair. In the 
loneliest part of our walk, near the Bald Hitls of the Hoddle Range, 
a pair of Dingoes came in sight. They also sighted us, lifted their 
heads and sniffed. Apparently they sniffed danger, for they speedily 
turned tail and bounded off, retaining, however, a certain amount of 
dignity in their movements. A whip-snake here met with his fate. 
But on the whole, snakes were very shy of us, and snakes do not 
constitute a very serious element of danger in camping-out excursions. 
Among the sands between Yanakie and the shore we found 
colonies of marine, and also of fresh-water, shells, all of recent 
species. They were perhaps merely drift shells from the sea and 
_ from the marshes surrounding Shallow Inlet respectively. But one 
could not help speculating on a former occupation of the now sand- 
deluged station by the sea, and by stagnant pools. The shells 
occurred far inland. 
Both limestone and coal appear along the south coast of the 
mainland and the west coast of the Promontory. Mr. Cresswell, in 
his paper on the ‘‘ Geology of Griffith’s Point and Kilcunda,” 
mentioned the) out-crop of, coal-seams on the shore between those 
_ places. We came across a seam of poor lignite not far from the 
