Assuredly no sumptuary laws were needed to restrain such revels as these. "On another occasion, in consequence of the additional fatigues of the day, I allowed some pieces of fat to be fried with our meat." Horrible gluttony! After they had been some months out, an extraordinary desire for fat diet took possession of the wanderers. At first they felt disgust for it, and rejected it contemptuously, but suddenly a total change occurred. "The relish continued to increase as our bullocks grew poorer; and we became as eager to examine the condition of a slaughtered beast as the natives, whose practice in that respect we had formerly ridiculed." When they caught an emu, their first and eager care was to pluck the feathers and cut into the flesh, "to see how thick the fat was, and whether it was a _rich yellow_." The Spartan Doctor himself was not proof against the greasy fascination. Hear his confession of a frailty, and record of its quick-succeeding punishment. 'Tis _a propos_ of kites, which filthy feeders, unaccustomed in the lonely bush to the sight of man, become exceedingly daring and impudent. "Yesterday, I cleaned the fat gizzard of a bustard to grill it on the embers, and the idea of the fat dainty-bit made my mouth water. But, alas! whilst holding it in my hand, a kite pounced down and carried it off, pursued by a dozen of his comrades, eager to seize the booty." It needs no great stretch of fancy to picture the Doctor, bereaved of his gizzard, sitting open-mouthed and aghast at the foot of a gum-tree, his fingers still shining from the unctuous contact, the moisture of anticipation oozing from his lips, his eyes watching the flight of the felon kite, whilst the 'possum on the branch above grins at his mishap. The loss was the more serious, that game was not abundant just then. They had got into a flat, sandy, uninteresting country; all box-trees and ant-hills, as Australian Charley described it, with no cover, and nothing to shoot at. Bad enough for the sportsman, but highly eligible squatting ground, where the settler would have few trees to fell and abundant grass for his cattle. As for the game, it came in tracts and districts. Sometimes they thought themselves fortunate could they secure a few pigeons, at others, they revelled in pinguid plenty,--kangaroos roasted whole, fat ibis, flying foxes in scores, and ducks by the dozen. The atmosphere of these latitudes must be particularly favourable to the appetite, judging from the following passage.--"Charley Brown and John, who had been left at the lagoon to shoot waterfowl, returned with twenty ducks for luncheon, and went out again during the afternoon to procure more for dinner and breakfast. They succeeded in shooting thirty-one ducks and two geese; so that we had fifty-one ducks and two geese for the three meals; and they were all eaten, with the exception of a few bony remains, which some of the party carried to the next camp. If we had had a hundred ducks, they