Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/167



calling upon our friends Isaac and Katharine Sherwin, they pressed us again to take up our quarters at their house, to which we consented: we continued their guests till the 21st of 3rd mo., making in the interval an excursion into the country, to the southward.

2nd mo. 1st. Washing is an expensive item in new colonies: here we are charged 5s. per dozen articles. To-day, our washerwoman laid out £3 in a coral necklace for herself, and a watchchain for her husband! forgetting, I suppose, that this foolish indulgence of pride would not alter her station in society.

2nd. The climate here is much warmer and drier than that to the westward; the harvest is ripe, and under the sickle, and the grass dry and brown upon the ground. Large Grasshoppers, with yellow underwings, margined with black, are very numerous, as are also several species of Lizard. In my walk this morning, I saw a lizard run into a hole with one of the grasshoppers in its mouth, and was induced to watch another, catching its more active prey. The lizard waited till a grasshopper alighted near it, and seized the insect with agility: it then broke off the wings, which it took up and eat; it afterwards laid hold of the grasshopper again, transversely, and by a few movements of the jaws, brought the head of the insect into its mouth, and