There are snipe to be shot in Australia; but wild duck is really the best kind of shooting we get, and far more easily obtainable.  They are much more varied in kind than at home.  Rabbits are generally too plentiful to afford much fun.  I have pelted them by the score from the veranda of a station-house in South Australia.  At best they are poor sport.  The kangaroos and wallaby are generally too tame.  Amongst other animals shootable are the native bear—­a sluggish creature looking like a small bear; the bandicoot, a small animal with a pig’s head and snout; the native cat; cockatoos, parrots, eagles, hawks, owls, parroquets, wild turkey, quail, native pheasants, teal, native companions, water-hens, and the black swan and the opossum.  Of these the wild turkey affords the best fun.  You have to stalk them in a buggy, and drive in a gradually narrowing circle round them till you get within shot.  The opossum you shoot by moonlight, getting them between your gun and the moon as they jump from tree to tree.  Teal are fairly numerous.  Pheasants, partridges, and quail, like the deer, were imported, and have bred rapidly; but they are not sufficiently preserved.

On fishing I am no authority; but I have always understood that the fishing in Australia was very poor.  Trout are being acclimatized in Victoria, but the day of the angler has yet to come.

The population of Victoria is 880,000; of Melbourne and suburbs, within a ten-mile radius, 280,000.  During the Exhibition year over 100,000 people paid a shilling, or more for admission to the Flemington Race Course on the Melbourne Cup day.  The usual number on that occasion is 60,000 to 80,000.  I don’t know any better way of asserting Australian, and especially Victorian, supremacy as the racing country par excellence, in comparison with which England, proportionately to her population and her wealth, must indeed take a back-seat.  There is not an inhabited nook or corner of Australia where an annual meeting is not got up, and well attended too.  This meeting is the rendezvous of the whole country-side, and generally ends up with a dance, and what is colonially known as a ‘drunk.’

The large number of imported horses, the care taken in their selection and the prices which have been paid in England for the best sires, are sufficient proof that for strain of blood Australia is not to be beaten in the world, whilst the progeny of this imported stock has for distance beaten the best records of the English turf.  Thus while Kettledrum’s 2.43 is the best time—­if my memory serve me right—­on record for the Epsom Derby, there have been several 2.43’s in Australia, and three years ago Darebin won in 2.41 1/2.  And if it be objected that the imperfections of the Epsom course account for the difference, I would point to Commotion’s victory in the Champion Stakes last New Year’s Day—­three miles in 5.26.  The times here are most carefully taken, and whilst admitting that time can only furnish a rough test of merit, the times I have mentioned are sufficient to show that colonial horses can at least claim comparison with those at home.  Doubtless before long we shall see an Australian colt running at Epsom; but the difficulties of age and transit must always severely handicap any Australian horse performing on the English turf.