412 



were lower and the intervening valleys well supplied with 

 herbage, and occasionally scattered clumps of small timber 

 were found ; these were always occupied with colonies of 

 Galahs, and for the first time I noticed that the birds had 

 ringbarked many of the trees (pi. xxvi., fig. 2), almost suggest- 

 ing that the trees were intentionally killed for the purpose 

 of providing ''spouts" for nesting in a district where suitable 

 sites were palpably few. On the evening of the 10th we 

 reached Kanowana Station, and camped in the bed of Cooper 

 Creek, here absolutely dry, though only 30 miles in a straight 

 line from Cuttapirie Corner. At Kanowana we saw a 

 number of natives, mostly women, and unlike those within 

 reach of the mission stations, they offered no objection to being 

 photographed ; there were also a few children at their camps. 

 Our next objective was Mirra Mitta, and at Narrawalpina, 

 three miles out from Kanowana, we dismissed our guide, 

 who had followed a faint camel-pad thus far. This we soon 

 lost among the sandhills, and though we searched diligently 

 we failed to find it again. As a straight line would not touch 

 Mirra Mitta under 53 miles, and as the prospect of finding 

 water was doubtful, it was well that we should recover the 

 track, and a messenger was sent to bring Jack to the rescue. 

 The blackfellow, with the instincts of his race, picked up the 

 pad, and we finally parted from him, the old chap bidding 

 adieu with tears in his eyes. Higher sandhills were now 

 encountered, ridge after ridge seemingly interminable, the 

 intervening valleys differing greatly in respect to the vegeta- 

 tion they supported. 



On the evening of the 11th we again struck the dry bed 

 of the Cooper, and camped at a place where there were man)? 

 carcasses of dead bullocks. We next crossed the southern 

 end of Lake Perigundi. In this district the sandhills have 

 clayey substrata, which resists the wind and becomes only 

 partially denuded, leaving rough mounds 5 or 6 feet in 

 height, in which the Sand Martins make their burrows. 

 Every bit of bush, every stone or other object forms a break- 

 wind, and a wedge-shaped strip of sand remains on the shel- 

 tered side ; this is cut to a keel-like edge, producing precisely 

 the effect seen on some wind-cut stones. Here I learned for the 

 first time that the larvae of, at any rate, some ant lions do not 

 always remain at the bottom of their pits, but tunnel there- 

 from for some distance close to the surface ; by making a 

 sudden grab at the further end of the tunnel the larva could 

 often be secured. 



October 12 proved to be a most irritating day. After 

 leaving the timber we had no respite from the sandhills 

 (pi. xxvii., fig. 1), crossing seventeen large ranges during the 



