IIOKN EXPKDITION — NAHliATIVE. 59 



^^'llil.st eullccting various articles amongst tliuai, I was surpi'isi'd to tiiul that, 

 at lii'st, v.vvn the oiler of toljaeco was iiniily refused fur a very eoiiiinoiiplaee 

 necklet, which was, a-pj)arently, only a narrow cord of hair well greased and 

 covt;i-etl with red oclii'e after the native fashion. After some little time, tluring 

 whicli the owner seemed very unwilling to refer to it at all and (jnly spoke in 

 whispers, it appeared that the necklet contained tlie iiair of a dead warrior taken 

 from his head after death. It was thei-efore regaixled really as a charm and as 

 endowing the wearer with the atti'iljutes of the dead warrior. It was only after 

 some two hours' persuasion and a liberal gift of tobacco that the owner could be 

 induced to part with it. 



Travelling north-west from Ilenbury we still followed up the Finke. Along 

 the baid'CS were patches of iSalsola,, but they were liecoming less frecpient as we left 

 the Desert Sandstone behind us, and grasses such as clumps of Sjiinifex (S. para- 

 doxus)^ and now and again of Porcupine (Triodia, sp.), were becoming more 

 frequent. Fur the lii'st time also we met with Eucalyptus ;^aiiiophylla, one of the 

 Malice gums, tliat is, those which ha\e a, bole or bossy stem often not cons})icuous 

 ab(jve the gi'ouud from which arise a nuudjer of small branches. The so-called 

 niallee ro(jt is, in fact, the main trunk. Th(t U'aves of this species as its name 

 intlicates have no k.'af stalks, Ijut are joinetl to one anothei' in pairs liy their bases 

 uniting around the stem. The tree does not attain to a greater height than 

 perhaps iifteen feet or at most twenty. 



All througii the scrub we met with large webs of a spider which exists in 

 great numbers throughout the central region from Oodnadatta in the .south, up t() 

 Alice Springs in the north, and away to the Oeorge (Jill Range in the west. Tiie 

 webs stretch across fi'om tree to tree for a distance often of twelve to fifteen feet, 

 and are, perhaps, ii\e or six feet in lieight in the centre. During the day-time the 

 spider {Nephile ereiiiiana) can almost always be seen in the centre. It is of 

 consideraljle size, the whole body being st)metimes upwards of two inches long, and 

 when disturbed it rapidly retreats along one of tin; strong side lines leading away 

 into a shrub on which can often be seen its cocoon attached to the leaves. Very 

 often two webs were found close together — in fact, this was of such frcitjuent 

 occurrence as to draw special attention to it — one with a large and the other with 

 a smaller spider on them but in every case they were all females. Tlieir food 

 consists of any kind of insects which tly into the webs which are so strong as to 

 make riding through them not at all comfortalile ; they are so strong as to suggest 

 the idea that they niight even entangle small birds, but none were seen thus 

 captured. Though the spiders exist in great nuud)ers, still, of tht^ enormous 



