23D SEPTEMBER.--At 7 A.M. thermometer 59 deg.. Latitude 24 deg. 2' S. New flowers perfumed the dry bed of this river, and these showed, in their forms and structure, that nature even in variety is infinite. I regretted I could not collect specimens. Our only care now, was the duration of our provisions. Water was less a subject of anxiety with me now, than it had been at any period of the journey. We had made the Emu eke out our little stock, and my men (two old soldiers) were willing to undergo any privation that might enable me to prolong my ride. This day completed half the month, but I was determined to follow the course of this interesting river at least four days longer. The back of one of our pack horses had become so sore, that he would no longer endure a load; we threw away the pack saddle, and divided his load, so as to distribute it in portions, on some of the saddle horses and the other pack animal. The course of the river towards the west, and our limited time, obliged me to stride over as much of the general direction as possible. I crossed the river, and travelled across open downs. I saw the tops of its Yarra trees on my left. At about four miles, we crossed what seemed a large river, but which must have been only an ana-branch from the main stream. We next traversed a fine open down of six miles; the soil, a firm blue clay with gravel, and on this grew two varieties of grass which I had seen nowhere else. The valley I next approached, contained the channel of a river flowing towards our river; a tributary, which evidently bore impetuous floods into it, sometimes. This also ran in three channels. I called it the Alice. As this new river was likely to turn the main stream off to the westward or south, I travelled west by compass over vast downs, finely variegated with a few loose trees like a park, but extending on all sides to the horizon. Where I looked for the main channel, I saw rising ground of this kind; and meeting with another small river, with a stoney bed and water in it, I bivouacqued, for the day was very hot; the thermometer, at 3 P.M., 90 deg. in the shade. The pond here was much frequented by pigeons, and a new sort of elegant form and plumage, was so numerous that five were killed at two shots. The head was jet-black, the neck milkwhite, the wings fawn-colour, having lower feathers of purple. I had no means of preserving a specimen, but I took a drawing of one.[*] Height above the sea here, 826 feet. [* By which I find it has been named GEOPHAPS HISTRIONIEA.]