still hovered about Melbourne, and I recollect gazing in admiration at a
cluster of six of them perched upon a large gum-tree near the town, upon
the Flemington-road. The platypus, also, was quite plentiful, especially
in the Merri Creek. Visiting, about 1843, my friend Dr. Drummond, who
had a house and garden at the nearest angle of the creek, about two
miles from town, we adjourned to a "waterhole" at the foot of the
garden, on the chance of seeing a platypus, and sure enough, after a
very few minutes, one rose before us in the middle of the pool.


THE ABORIGINAL NATIVES IN AND ABOUT TOWN.

"Oh I see the monstrousness of man
When he looks out in an ungrateful shape."
--Timon of Athens.

The natives still strolled into Melbourne at the time of my arrival, and
for a couple of years or so after; but they were prohibited about the
time of the institution of the corporation, as their non-conformity in
attire--to speak in a decent way--their temptations from offers of drink
by thoughtless colonists, and their inveterate begging, began soon to
make them a public nuisance. But aboriginal ways did not die at once.
The virtues or integrity of native life, as Strzelecki would phrase it,
struggled and survived for some few further years the strong upsetting
tide of colonial life.

Returning one night, about 1843, from dining with Mr. William Locke, an
old colonial merchant, at his pretty cottage and gardens on the Merri
Creek, between four and five miles out by the Sydney-road, I diverged
westwards from the purely bush track which as yet constituted that main