360 
Miscellanea . 
Isles (of the group of Hunter's Islands), and certainly contains 
upwards of a cart load of brushwood and similar materials ; and 
being perched on the top of a bare rocky islet, destitute of trees 
or shrubs, forms a very prominent object to vessels passing be¬ 
tween the Van Diemen's Land Company's establishments of Cir¬ 
cular Head and Woolnorth, 
The Pandion leucocephalus , Gould , or Fish Hawk—a bird not 
half the size of the Ickthyiaetus leucogaster —also builds a very 
large and similarly formed nest ; Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Gould r s 
assistant, having measured one fifteen feet in circumference on 
Rottnest Island, Western Australia.— Ronald C. Gunn, Laun¬ 
ceston . 
COURSE OF THE HUME RIVER FROM THE HILLY 
DISTRICTS TO THE JUNCTION OF THE MURRUM- 
BIDGEE.—By Captain Charles Sturt. Communicated 
by Lord Stanley. 
(From the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.) 
When in the year 1838, I made up my mind to conduct a party 
overland from New South Wales to South Australia, I determined 
on making my private interests as much as possible subservient 
to geographical research, by tracing the Hume downwards from 
where it crosses the main road to Port Phillip to the mouth of 
the Murrumbidgee, at which point it loses the above name and 
becomes the Murray. The distance being about two hundred and 
sixty miles, I was anxious to ascertain the nature of the country 
along this its unknown course, and, by fixing the points of junc¬ 
tion of its several tributaries, to complete the survey of streams 
falling into the interior from the south-east angle of the conti¬ 
nent. 
I accordingly assembled my party at the lowest (highest ?) sta¬ 
tion on the Hume, in the month of April, 1838, and commenced 
my journey by moving along its right bank, and following it in a 
westerly direction into the low and depressed interior. In lati¬ 
tude 34° 48* S., and in longitude 146° 3' E., we passed the 
junction of the Ovens, a small river coming from the S. E., and 
