From the highest hillock beyond the valley a view of the interior was
obtained: it presents, like most of the portions of the continent we had
discovered, the aspect of a dreary plain, clothed with grass and detached
clumps of green brushwood. "What a strange country!" was the exclamation
that naturally burst from us all, on beholding this immense and
apparently interminable expanse, with no rise to relieve the tired eye.
As we gazed, our imaginations transported us to the Pampas of South
America, which this vast level greatly resembled, except that the motions
of no startled deer or ostriches scudding over the country, and leaving a
train of dust behind, gave life and animation to the scene. No trace of
kangaroos, or of natives, not even the sign of a fire, greeted us on this
inhospitable coast. The evidences of animal were as scanty as those of
vegetable life.

BIRDS.

Two brown bustards rose out of the grass; they were of the same size and
colour as those seen in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and quite as wary, which
was very singular. A couple of specimens of land birds were shot; one of
them resembled a Meliphagus, although its stomach was filled with small
beetles, finely broken up;* its head was covered with yellow pollen, out
of a flower resembling the mallow, which is frequently resorted to by
small beetles during the heat of the day, when the petal closing over
them they are extracted, with some difficulty, by the bird. The other
specimen was a brown grain-feeding kind; it invariably rested on the
ground, where in its habits, head erect, tail down, and short, sudden
run, it greatly resembled a tit-lark.

(*Footnote. Usually observed in the specimens of this species procured by