Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/334

252

The lizard feeds on worms and flies; it lays its eggs in holes and soft ground, and leaves them; when the young ones are out of the egg, they care for themselves. Both the lizards and their eggs are good for eating.

The eels generally live in water-holes, rivers, and swamps; but often, when the grass is wet, they travel long distances over it. Eels are very good for eating.

The common sort of snakes are to be found or met with everywhere; they sleep in winter and travel in summer. Before the snakes changed their heads with the turtles they were not dangerous, but now, if they bite, nearly always is death certain. Some snakes were good for eating long ago, but now beef and mutton are better.

Habits of Native Animals, according to accounts given to Mr. John Green, of the Coranderrk Station (Yarra River):—

The blacks say that the platypus has but one young at a time, and that it gives birth to it in the same way as a dingo, and suckles it. It is in the spring of the year that they have their young. They make a nest in a hole in the ground on the bank of a creek.

The blacks say that they do not know anything about snakes.

The small lizards lay their eggs in old logs, and they are hatched by the heat of the sun. The large lizards lay their eggs in the roots of hollow trees, and then clay up the hole. About the middle of summer they return, and remove part of the clay, leaving only a small or thin crust over the eggs, which the young ones can easily remove themselves.

The blacks say they do not know how fish and eels breed.

They say that the young are formed first in the womb, and when they are born the mother puts them into the pouch.