depth of eighteen or twenty inches, each egg nearly a foot from its neighbour, and standing on end, with the larger half uppermost.  Thus they remain until hatched, though how the bird manages to plant them with such dexterity has, I believe, never been ascertained; no one yet having been sufficiently lucky to witness the proceeding.  Directly the little birds chip the shell, they run about with the greatest agility, and their capture is exceedingly difficult.  A nest with freshly-laid eggs is a glorious find, for several dozen are frequently extracted, and are most delicious eating.

The evening was fast approaching, when we camped for the night by the side of a nice clear water-hole in a sequestered valley, and, after bathing and having tea, we tried our luck at fishing, for these holes are sometimes full of eels.  We prospered, and soon had several fine fellows on the bank, from whence they were speedily transferred to the hot ashes, and roasted in their integrity; they were thus spared the skinning, to which, it is averred, custom has habituated them.  Ferdinand and Cato were collecting firewood for the night, for, in the position we had selected, we were not afraid of making a good blaze, and we were sitting and lounging round the fire, conjecturing what had become of all the blacks, and how soon we should fall in with the other party, when Lizzie —­ who had accompanied the troopers —­ came rushing back, and said:  —­

“One fellow snake been bit ’em Cato; plenty that fellow go bong (dead) by-and-by, mine believe.”

We all jumped up, and sure enough, poor Cato came slowly towards us, looking the ashy-grey colour to which fear turns the black, and followed by Ferdinand, who dragged after him a large black snake, the author of the mischief.

If Australia is exempt from wild beasts, the number of venomous reptiles with which it is cursed make it as dangerous to the traveller as other tropical countries in which ferocious animals abound.  Hardly a tree or a shrub can be found that does not contain or conceal some stinging abomination.  The whole of these are not, of course, deadly, but a tarantula bite, or a centipede sting, will cripple a strong man for weeks, while a feeble constitution stands a fair chance of succumbing.  But of all these pests, none can equal the snakes, which not only swarm, but seem to have no fear of man, selecting dwellings by choice for an abode.  These horrible reptiles are of all sizes, from the large carpet snake of twenty feet, to the little rock viper of scarcely half a dozen inches.  The great majority of these are venomous, and are of too many different kinds for me to attempt their enumeration here.  The most common with us were the brown, black, and whip snakes, and the death-adder, all poisonous; and the carpet-snake, harmless.  The brown and black snakes run from two to eight feet in length, frequent the long grass, chiefly in the neighbourhood of swamps, and from the