A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53Clacy, Charles, Mrs.
History
A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53
Clacy, Charles, Mrs.
Australia -- Description and travel; Gold mines and mining -- Australia
A small kind of fish like the lamprey, another similar to the gudgeon,
and also one (of rather a larger kind--the size of the roach) called
here "white herrings," but not at all resembling that fish, are found.
Pike are also very numerous. Crabs and lobsters are not known here, but
in the salt creeks near the sea we have craw-fish.
Of course, parrots, cockatoos and "sich-like," abound in the
bush, to the horror of the small gardeners and cultivators, as what
they do not eat they ruin by destroying the young shoots.
Kangaroos are extremely numerous in the scrub. They are the size of a
large greyhound, and of a mouse colour. The natives call them
"kanguru." The tail is of great strength. There are several varieties
of them. The largest is the Great Kangaroo, of a greyish-brown colour,
generally four or five feet high and the tail three. Some kangaroos are
nearly white, others resemble the hare in colour. Pugs, or young
kangaroos, are plentiful about the marshy grounds; so are also the
opossum and kangaroo rat. The latter is not a rat, properly speaking,
but approaches the squirrel tribe. It is a lilliputian kangaroo, the
size of our native wood squirrel and larger, only grey or reddish-grey.
It can leap six or eight feet easily, and is excellent eating. The
native dog is of all colours; it has the head and brush of a fox, with
the body a legs of a dog. It is a cowardly animal, and will run away
from you like mad. It is a great enemy of the kangaroo rat, and
a torment to the squatter, for a native dog has a great PENCHANT for
mutton and will kill thirty or forty sheep in the course of an hour.
A species of mocking-bird which inhabits the bush is a ludicrous
creature. It imitates everything, and makes many a camping party
imagine there is a man near them, when they hear its whistle or hearty
laugh. This bird is nicknamed the "Jackass," and its loud "ha! ha! ha!"
is heard every morning at dawn echoing through the woods and serving
the purpose of a "boots" by calling the sleepy traveller in good time
to get his breakfast and pursue his journey. The bats here are very
large.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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