526 



NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Jan. 1836. 



traveller's eye. In these woods there are not many birds ; 

 I saw, however, some large flocks of the white cockatoo 

 feeding in a corn-field, and a few most beautiful parrots; 

 crows like our jackdaws were not uncommon, and another 

 bird something like the magpie. The EngHsh have not 

 been very particular in giving names to the productions of 

 Australia; trees of one genus (Casuarina) are called oaks 

 for no one reason that I can discover, without it is that 

 there is no one point of resemblance. Some quadrupeds 

 are called tigers and hyenas, simply because they are car- 

 nivorous, and so on in many other cases. 



In the dusk of the evening I took a stroll along a chain of 

 ponds, which in this dry country represented the course of 

 a river, and had the good fortune to see several of the 

 famous Platypus, or Ornithorhyncus varadoxiis. They were 

 diving and playing about the surface of the water, but 

 showed so little of their bodies that they might easily have 

 been mistaken for water-rats. Mr. Browne shot one : cer- 

 tainly it is a most extraordinary animal ; the stuff'ed speci- 

 mens do not at all give a good idea of the recent appear- 

 ance of its head and beak; the latter becoming hard and 

 contracted. 



A little time before this I had been lying on a sunny 

 bank, and was reflecting on the strange character of the 

 animals of this country as compared with the rest of the 

 world. An unbeliever in every thing beyond his own 

 reason might exclaim, Two distinct Creators must have 

 been at work ; their object, however, has been the same, 

 and certainly the end in each case is complete.^' While 

 thus thinking, I observed the hollow conical pitfall of the 

 lion-ant : first a fly fell down the treacherous slope and im- 

 mediately disappeared ; then came a large but unwary ant ; 

 its struggles to escape being very violent, those curious little 

 jets of sand, described by Kirby * as being flirted by the 

 insects tail, were promptly directed against the expected 



* Kirby's Entomology, vol. i., p. 425. The Australian pitfall is only 

 about half the size of the one made by the European species. 



