the opossum tribe, and the land tortoises are plentiful.  These, with birds and roots, constitute their sustenance.  They have neither boat nor raft, nor did the party fall in with any thing resembling a hut.  They made use of the word “kangaroo” and other terms in use at Port Jackson.  The party saw only the three kinds of animals above-mentioned, and heard the barking of the native dog; no other reptiles but iguanas and lizards and a single snake presented themselves.

Of birds, the list is somewhat more extensive.  The emu is frequent on the plains, and that once supposed “rara avis,” the elegant black swan, was seen in the greatest abundance on the river to which it has lent its name, and particularly on Melville lake.  Equally abundant were numerous species of the goose and duck family.  White and black cockatoos, parrots and parroquets, were every where found.  Pigeons and quails were seen in great quantities, and many melodious birds were heard in the woods.

Seals were plentiful on all the islands.  Captain Stirling says that it was not the season for whales, but their debris strewed the shore of Geographer’s Bay.  The French, in May and June, met with a prodigious number of whales along this part of the coast, and sharks equally numerous and of an enormous size, some of them stated to be upwards of two thousand pounds in weight.  Vlaming mentions the vast numbers of large sharks on this part of the coast, and he, as well as the French, found the sea near the shore swarming with sea-snakes, the largest about nine or ten feet long.  Captain Stirling’s party procured three or four different kinds of good esculent fish; one in particular, a species of rock-cod, is described as excellent.

“The bottom of the sea,” says Captain Stirling, “is composed of calcareous sand, sometimes passing into marl or clay.  On this may be seen growing an endless variety of marine plants, which appear to form the haunts and perhaps the sustenance of quantities of small fish.  When it is considered that the bank extends a hundred miles from the shore, and that wherever the bottom is seen, it presents a moving picture of various animals gliding over the green surface of the vegetation, it is not too much to look forward to the time when a valuable fishery may be established on these shores.  Even now, a boat with one or two men might be filled in a few hours.”

The island of Buache is admirably adapted for a fishing town.  The anchorage close to its eastern shore in Cockburn Island is protected against all winds; and the island itself, of six or seven thousand acres, of a light sort of sand and loam, is well suited, as Mr. Fraser thinks, for any description of light garden crops.  The side next the sea is fenced by a natural dyke of limestone, coveted with cypress, and in many places with an arborescent species of Metrosideros; and all the valleys are clothed with a gigantic species of Solanum, and a beautiful Brownonia.  The soil in these thickets is a rich brown loam intermixed with blocks of limestone, and susceptible, Mr. Fraser says, of producing any description of crop.  Fresh water may be had in all these valleys by digging to the depth of two feet.  On this island Captain Stirling caused a garden to be planted and railed out; on which account he named it “Garden Island.”