OCR Text |
Show 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 English 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 carnivorous, 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 Omithm·h.!Jncus varadoxus. They were divinO' and playing about the surface of .the water, but show:d so little of their bodies that they might easily have been mistaken for water-rats. Mr. Browne shot one: certainly it is a most extraordinary animal; the stuffed specimens do not at all give a good idea of the recent appearance 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 immediately 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. Jan. 1836. NEW SOUTH WALES. 527 victim. But the ant enjoyed a better fate than the fly and escaped the fatal jaws which lay concealed at the base ~f the con~cal hollow. There can be no doubt but that this pred~ cwus larva belongs to the same genus with the European kmd, though to a different species. Now what would the sceptic say to this ? Would any two workmen ever have hit upon so beautiful, so simple, and yet so artificial a contrivance ? It cannot be thought so: one Hand has surely work~d throughout the universe. JANUAn.Y 20TH.-A long day's ride to Bathurst. Befo joining the high road we followed a mere path through t~: forest; and the co~ntry, with the exception of a few squatters' huts, was very solitary. A " squatter'' is a freed, or "ticket of leave" man, who builds a hut with bark on unoccupied ground, buys or steals a few animals, sells spirits without a licence, receives stolen goods,-and so at last becomes ric.h and turns farmer : he is the horror of all his honest nmghbours. A "crawler'' is an assigned convict who runs away, and Jives how he can, by labour and petty theft. The "bush ranger'' is an open villain, who subsists by highway robbery ~nd . plunder: generally he is desperate, and wiU sooner be killed than taken alive. In the country it is necessary to understand these three names, for they are in common use. This day we experienced the sirocco-like wind of Australia, which comes from the parched deserts of the interior. Clouds of dust were travelling in every direction · and the wind felt like that which has passed over a fire. ' I afterwards heard that the thermometer out of doors stood at 119o and in a room in a closed house at 96°. In the afternoon w; came in view of the. downs of Bathurst. These undulating, but nea~ly level plams are very remarkable in this country, from bemg absolute.ly destitute of a single tree. They support only a very thm brown pasture. We rode some miles across this kind of country, ap.d then reached the township of Bathurst, which is seated in the middle of what may be called either a very broad va1ley ~r narrow plain. |