exceptionally dry, and he was obliged to turn back before he had
accomplished his object.


"If a line be drawn from Lat. 29° 30´ and Long. 140° N.W., and another
from Mount Arden due north, they will meet a little to the northward of
the tropic, and there I will be bound to say a fine country will be
discovered." On what date Sturt pledges himself to the discovery of this
fine country is not stated, but when later regretting his failure to
reach the tropic and to set at rest his hypothesis of the better country
to be found there, he briefly tells his reason for the supposition.

"Birds observed east of the Darling in the summer of 1828 in about lat.
29° 30´ S. and long. 144° had invariably migrated to the W.N.W.
Cockatoos and parrots, known while in the colony to frequent the richest
and best-watered valleys of the higher lands, would pass in countless
flights to that point of the compass. In South Australia, in lat. 35°
and long. 138°, I had also observed that several birds of the same kind
annually visited that Province from the north. I had seen the Psittacus
Novae Hollandiae and the shell paroquet following the shoreline of St.
Vincent's Gulf like flights of starlings in England. The different
flights at intervals of more than a quarter of an hour, all came from
the north, and followed in one and the same direction.

"Now although the casual appearance of a few strange birds should not
influence the judgement, yet from the regular migrations of the
feathered race, a reasonable inference may be drawn. Seeing then that
these two lines (viz., from Fort Bourke about lat. 30° and long. 144° to
the W.N.W., and from Mount Arden in lat. 35° long. 138° to the north)
if prolonged would meet a little to the northward of the tropic, I