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265 from the look of it I should say it was better, for I think an opossum as vile eating, but in the colony we are not very squeamish.—I have had three men these two days branding the sheep with a hot iron, dressing them for the scab. M was here to-day, modestly requesting me to lend him 40 or 50 bushels of wheat, and he would repay me after next harvest. We had several showers of rain to-day,—the first we have had for a long time. All vegetation on my ground is at a standstill for want of it.—I have been reading many Irish newspapers, all very dull. I wonder if our little colonial Gazette reaches you. I send it regularly; it is very small for the money—like most other things here.

Wednesday, May 6.—A native dog attacked the flock yesterday, and would not be driven away by all the shepherd's exertions, but at last caught one by the throat and so worried it that it died to-day. It was a fine ewe, forward in lamb. This is not my only misfortune, for I have found one of my best young ewes in the river to-night drowned; it was weak, having been bled and physicked yesterday.—The police are here to-day. I had sent for them to endeavour to arrest some of the owners of these dogs, but they (the natives) made off. This may have a good effect in showing them how we look on such matters.—One of the little native boys was busy eating frogs to-day. They looked so tempting that I ate one also, and it was delicious. The part I ate, however, was the eggs of the female, which they seem to prize most, as they say, "the men frogs are no good," the taste was much like that of an egg. It strikes me that I have never seen here in the pools the frog spawn, and these eggs, judging by their appearance when the frog was roasted, looked like little white eggs, distinctly formed, and not globular jellies with the embryo, like a black speck, as they are at home. The natives dig them out of the ground with their hands. There is no water now, nor none since winter last, when these were got. How do they live? Do they sleep?