Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/159

1833.] short legs, and being about the size of a terrier, is commonly known by the name of, the Devil, or the Bush-Devil: it is very destructive to lambs. Smaller species of an allied genus, but more resembling the Pole-cat in form, are known by the names of Tiger-cat and Native-cat. These are destructive to poultry. The whole group eats insects, particularly Grass-hoppers, which are extremely abundant in some parts of the Island. Some of the Owls also eat insects: a number were taken from the stomach of a small round-headed species, shot a few evenings ago. There is likewise here a beautiful owl, nearly allied to the Barn-Owl of England. The Land-lobster, noticed at Port Davey, throws up its chimneys also in wet ground at the Hampshire Hills.

14th. I walked with J. Milligan to some wet plains, covered with rushy herbage, and passed through some forest where a dense, wiry scrub of a white flowered Bauera greatly impeded our progress. We got turned round in it, and the day being cloudy, we could not correct our course by the sun. On discovering that the compass pointed the contrary way to what we expected, we had to summon all our resolution, to follow its guidance, especially as we had heard many tales of its being attracted by ironstone, in this country; but we had cause for thankfulness in being enabled to resolve to prove it, for an error here might have placed our lives in imminent peril. Though the compass, in some instances, may possibly have been attracted, so as not to point accurately, I suspect, that in a majority of cases in which this is alleged to have taken place, it was not so, but that the parties who had become bewildered, having lost their confidence in this useful instrument, had wandered at random, till by some accident, they discovered where they were; and then, without proving whether the compass was wrong or not, laid the blame upon it, rather than acknowledge that themselves had missed the way.

G. W. Walker and two of his nephews, felled a Stringybark, that had been burnt hollow, and on this account had been left by the sawyers: it was 10 feet 9 inches in circumference, at 3 feet up, and 4 feet 3 inches round, at the first