10 HOUN KXPEDITION NARIiATIVE. 



Further .still, the land is one where almost perpetual sunshine rei,^ns ; week 

 after week, often month after month the sun shines briglitly all tlay loiii:; in an 

 almost cloudless sky. In the summer the heat is intense, hut in the winter months 

 from May to September, whilst the days are very iiot the nights are bitterly cold — 

 the temperature often falling many degrees below freezing point. 



To this irregular alternation of seasons, and to a great diurnal variati(jn in 

 temj)ei'ature every animal and plant must become, adapted if it is to survive. Hence 

 it is that so many of the plants are those which have special provisicjii to prevent 

 rapid (evaporation of moistui'c — such as the spiny Acacias and grasses, the wiry 

 Casuai'inas, the hairy-leaved A triplex or salt-bush, and the succulent Claytonia and 

 Portulaca which have thick cuticles. 



In addition to the special modification of the adult plants, the seeds require 

 to be of such a nature that they can both withstand the influence of long exposure 

 and at the same; time germin;ite rapidly directly the conditions become favour-able. 

 Anyone who has seen the inland loam flats and even the stony gibljer plains, Ijare 

 and desolate before the rains and green and luxuriant a few days afterwards, will 

 realize the phenomenal rate of germination :ind early growth possessed by many of 

 the steppe plants. 



Amongst animals we find the kangaroo and the dingo, which can travel long 

 distances with ease, or else, like the native blacks, can subsist, if need be, on the 

 dew which in early morning condenses on the gra.s.s, smaller marsupials which can 

 feed upon tlu; ants or dried up vegetation, frogs and mollusca which remain hidden 

 in the d.imper ground benenth tlue hard-baked surface, and crustacea such as Apus 

 and Estherias, the eggs of which will not dt^velope unless the water in which they 

 have been deposited dries uj). 



