It was very fortunate for Dr Leichhardt and his companions--who certainly had abundance of difficulties to encounter--that the country they traversed was nearly free from ferocious beasts and noxious reptiles. They had plenty to do without combating such formidable enemies. Throughout the whole journal there is no mention of any dangerous animal, except crocodiles and alligators,--easily avoided, and not much to be dreaded. On the 19th June, "Charley and Brown, who had gone to the river, returned at a late hour, when they told us they had seen the tracks of a large animal on the sands of the river, which they judged to be about the size of a big dog, trailing a long tail like a snake. Charley said, that when Brown fired his gun, a deep noise like the bellowing of a bull was heard, which frightened both so much that they immediately decamped. This was the first time we became aware of the existence of the crocodile in the waters of the gulf." Afterwards they not unfrequently fell in with them. Near the banks of a magnificent salt-water river--named by Dr Leichhardt the "Robinson," in honour of one of the promoters of the expedition--they came upon a native well. "When Charley first discovered it, he saw a crocodile leaning its long head over the clay-wall, enjoying a drink of fresh water." Of venomous snakes and insects, we also find little or no account in the Doctor's diary. Once only there was a suspicion of the kind. Upon leaving a camp on the river Lynd, the lad Murphy's pony was missing, and Charley went back to look for it. "He brought us the melancholy news that he had found the poor beast on the sands of the Lynd, with its body blown up, and bleeding from the nostrils. It had either been bitten by a snake or had eaten some noxious herb, which had fortunately been avoided by the other horses." Sand-flies and mosquitoes were very troublesome, large yellow hornets savage in their attacks, and ants every where. Of these, the species called the funnel-ant is worthy of notice for the peculiarity of its nest. It digs a perpendicular hole in the ground, and surrounds the opening with an elevated wall, sloping outwards like a funnel; a style of architecture of which, upon a rainy day, the tenant of the dwelling must feel the disadvantage. The white ant is also met with, and builds itself massive hills of enormous size. "I followed the Casuarina Creek up to its head, and called it 'Big Ant-Hill Creek,' in consequence of numerous gigantic strangely-buttressed structures of the white ant, which I had never seen of such a form, and of so large a size." Within three days' journey of the gulf of Carpentaria, the box-tree flat was studded with turreted ant-hills, either single sharp cones, three to five feet high, or united in rows and forming piles of remarkable appearance.