Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/193

1833.] Hamilton, of the ferocity of the Tasmanian eagles, she informed us, that she was once chased by one of these birds for some distance, and obliged to run to her house for shelter. A similar occurrence also happened to a person on Macquarie Plains, and the wife of a settler told us, that she one day observed a horse galloping backward and forward, whilst two eagles were chasing it; one of which was driving it in one direction, and the other in the other. At length the horse fell, and one of them pounced upon its head; she then called some of the men, who immediately drove off the ravenous birds: the poor beast soon regained its feet, and was thus delivered from its destroyers. The horse being in an enclosure, had not the opportunity of escaping.

Many shrubs and plants were in flower on the banks of the Derwent and the adjacent hills. The most striking were Acacia mollis, verticillata and Melanoxylon, Aster dentatas, Banksia australis, Pomaderris elliptica, Goodenia ovata, Indigofera australis, Pimelia incana, Tetratheca glandulosa, Euphrasia speciosa, and Kennedia prostrata.

A single Lemon tree exists in a garden at New Norfolk, and another at O'Briens Bridge, but the climate is not warm enough for them, and they are protected during the winter. Cape Pelargoniums (the Geraniums of English Greenhouses) endure the winter at Hobart Town, but they are killed by frost at New Norfolk, and at other places in the Interior.

During this journey, of two months, our wants were so hospitably supplied by the settlers, that we only spent twenty-five shillings, which were chiefly laid out in washing and postage.