THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 187 
Books on Australian Natural History were unknown to us, 
and when one day my father bought me “Bush Wanderings of 
a Naturalist/’ by An Old Bushman, I read every word of it, 
and decided I also would be a bushman. 
“The Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist, or notes on the 
Field Sports and Fauna of Australia Felix,” was the full 
title of the book, and it was published in London in 1861. A 
second edition, enriched with pictures copied from Gould was 
published later; both are now rather rare books. 
The author of the first authentic and popular description 
of Australian bush life was Horace William Wheelright, who 
was born at Tansor, Northamptonshire, on January 5th, 1815, 
and after all his wanderings died in his native Jand on Novem- 
ber 16th, 1865. 
His father was the Rector of Tansor. He studied for the 
law and practised as a solicitor between 1843 and 1847, but the 
wanderlust took him, and-he spent some years among the lakes 
and mountains of Norway and Sweden. In 1851 the discovery 
of gold in Victoria attracted the wanderers of the world to 
Australia, and Wheelright was among them. 
He did not make good on the goldfields, so turned hunter 
and shot ducks, other game and kangaroos for sale. The story 
of this part of his life is told in his Bush Naturalist, and the 
last article in his last work entitled, “The Australian Bush.” 
In 1856 he returned to Europe and again set out for 
Sweden, and took up his residence at Gardsjo, near Carlstadt, 
where he devoted his time to the study of Natural History and 
shooting, and this part of his life is told in his book, “Ten 
Years in Sweden.” 
In 1860 he commenced writing for the “Field” newspaper, 
and these articles were published in book form by Frederick 
Warne & Co., in 1865, “Sporting Sketches at Home and 
Abroad.” In the last two sketches are also Australian ex- 
periences, “The Wreck and the Australian Bush.” 
NOTES ON OPIUS TRYONT. 
By L. GALrarp. 
On February 10, while doing some collecting in the Gos- 
ford district, came across a White Ash tree (Schizomeria ovata), 
which had cast a lot of its berries. I opened some and found 
they were infected with fruit fly. I then collected about a 
quart of berries, and brought them home to breed out, with the 
object of testing whether the red parasitic wasp that we bred 
from them at the Government Insectarium at Narara in 1910 
