The most interesting episode in their excursion was their stay on Ash Island, a small isle in the Hunter River, the property of A. W. Scott, Esq., M.L.A., who has settled there with his family. Two of his daughters are hardly more conspicuous by their loveliness and grace than by their profound acquaintance with entomology, which they pursue with the utmost zeal. In addition to geological and conchyliological collections, they have also a carefully classed collection of insects and butterflies, and at the time of our visit were about publishing a large work upon Australian butterflies. They also have the lepidopterous _fauna_ of New South Wales in great variety and in every stage of metamorphosis, in many cases from the very _ovum_, all copiously explained, and their distinguishing characteristics placed beneath in a series of above one hundred tables, which the two ladies, who are accomplished artists both in drawing and painting, have themselves lithographed and coloured. An excursion was also made from Ash Island to the Sugar Loaf, 3288 feet high, the loftiest mountain in the district. As they had to do 40 miles in one day, the party sprang to their horses as soon as day dawned, and, accompanied by two settlers of Ash Island, laid themselves out for the day's work. First they ascended Hunter River for about a couple of miles, which a little further on headed to the northward, while the cavalcade kept to the left towards the hills. The forest was so clear of underwood, that one could almost ride along as though in a park. Despite the numerous traces of extensive fires, it seemed to have been but little altered by these from its primitive wildness. Occasionally huts and cultivated land were passed; the great proprietors usually give these runs to be cultivated as farms, or make them serve for their cattle, under their own drovers. In winter the cattle run at will in the "Bush," as the settlers call this characteristic scenery, wherever they can find the best pasture for themselves. In summer again, when the great heat dries everything up, they are foddered with hay under shelter. The sunny forest consists of _Eucalypti_, _Melaleuca_, and other _myrtaceæ_, splendid _casuarinas_, _Grevilleæ_, _Banksiæ_, the native pear (_Hylomelum_), the highly prized Warratah (_Telopea speciosissima_), the all but shadowless _Acacia_, the indigenous cherry (_Exocarpus_), beautiful _Papilionaceæ_, and very peculiar _Stylidiæ_, &c. All these were old acquaintances however of the Austrian naturalists, who greeted them in this their native soil with redoubled interest and astonishment. Covered with blossoms they grew in wild unchecked profusion all around their path, so that the very horses frequently trod them under foot, scenting the air with an aroma which in Europe can only be obtained by lavish expenditure. Numerous birds, chiefly parrots, circled round the tops of the trees; the crow-like _Strepera