Excursion to Botany Bay. 3385 



tlement in Australia was founded on January 26, 1788. On the very- 

 day when the " first fleet" was leaving for Port Jackson, two French 

 discovery-ships (La Boussole and L' Astrolabe), under the unfortunate 

 Lapeyrouse, put in here ; and that tall column near us reminds one 

 that here this ill-fated expedition was last seen by Europeans, and for 

 a long time its fate remained a mystery. Here too is the lonely tomb 

 of the Abbe Receveur, one of Lapeyrouse's naturalists, who died at 

 this place, of wounds received from the natives of the Navigator 

 Islands. 



What has become, you naturally ask, of the once numerous tribe of 

 aborigines of which these shores were once the home, and these wa- 

 ters the fishing-grounds ? Their doom has been worked out, — is the 

 answer, — not one now remains. The last of his race — his name was 

 Marut, and I knew him well — died in Sydney two years ago. He was 

 much attached to the scenes of his younger days, and felt his own de- 

 solate condition. A friend of mine was once walking on the sands of 

 Botany soon after sunrise, when this " last man " suddenly came from 

 the skirting thickets and joined him. " This all my country" said he, 

 making a large sweep with his extended arm, — " Nice country this — 

 My father chief long time ago, now I chief. — Water all pretty, sun 

 make it light. When I little fellow, plenty black fellow, plenty jins, 

 plenty piccaninny, great corrobory, plenty fight. Eh ! all gone now 

 and (pointing his forefinger to the ground) all gone Si?', only me left 

 to walk about ! " 



But I am forgetting that we are upon a zoological excursion, and 

 have yet to visit Bondy Bay, a short distance to the northward. On 

 the sandy beach are numerous Janthinae, Velellae, and Physalise cast 

 up by a recent westerly gale, together with shells of Spirillar, and dead 

 mutton-birds (Piiffinns brevicaudus) . Cicindela Upsilon is plentiful 

 on the sand, but difficult of capture. 



On the rocky headlands of Bondy Bay I found about a dozen spe- 

 cies of shells — a large Chiton, Haliotis naevosa, Ricinula tuberculata, 

 Turbo undulatus, T. versicolor, Parmophorus Novaa-Hollandiaa, &c, 

 and on the rocks reached occasionally by the spray, Planaxis mollis, 

 Littorina Mauritiana and L. pyramidalis. The pools contained black 

 Echini of two species, and several Asteriadse. I was amused with 

 watching two cuttlefishes {Octopus) ; the rapidity of their movements 

 surprized me, as did the ferocity with which one pounced upon an un- 

 fortunate crab. Another inmate of the pools is the snake-like Muraena 

 prasina, which bites savagely at a stick presented to it, and is secured 

 with difficulty. Numbers of a flat variegated crab (Grapsus rudis) 

 X. L 



