The rich variety of vegetation on the Illawarra mountain, which is a lofty range running parallel with the coast, contrasts beautifully with the richness of the scenery. The fern tree, shooting up its rough stem, about the thickness of a small boat's mast, to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and then, all at once shooting out a number of leaves in every direction, each at four or five feet in length, and exactly similar in appearance to the leaf of the common fern; while palms of various botanical species, are ever and anon shooting up their tall slender branchless stems to the height of seventy or a hundred feet, and then forming a large canopy of leaves, each of which bends gracefully outwards and then downwards, like a Prince of Wales' feathers. Another beautiful species met with in the low grounds of Illawarra, is the fan palm, or cabbage tree, and another equally graceful in its outline, is called by the natives Bangalo. [Illustration] The nettle tree, which is also met with in the bushes, is not only seen by the traveller, but occasionally felt, and remembered, for its name is highly descriptive. Both the animal and vegetable creation in Australia, are wholly different from those in every other part of the world. To show that the existence of a thing was not believed in, it was compared to a _black swan_, but in New Holland we find black swans, and blue frogs; red lobsters, and blue crabs; flying opossums, and beasts with bills like ducks; fish that hop about on dry land, and quadrupeds that lay eggs. The quadrupeds hitherto discovered, with very few exceptions, are all of the kangaroo or opossum tribe; having their hinder legs long, out of all proportion when compared with the length of the fore legs, and a sack under the belly of the female for the reception of the young. [Illustration] They have kangaroo rats, and dogs of the jackal kind, all exactly alike; and a little animal of the bear tribe, named the wombat, but the largest quadruped at present discovered is the kangaroo. These pretty nearly complete the catalogue of four-footed animals yet known on this vast island. There is, however, an animal which resembles nothing in the creation but itself, and which neither belongs to beast, bird or fish. This animal is called the Duck-billed Platypus. [Illustration] Of all the quadrupeds yet known, this seems the most extraordinary in its conformation; exhibiting the perfect semblance of the beak of a duck on the head of a quadruped. The head is flattish, and rather small than large; the mouth or snout so exactly resembles that of some broad-billed species of duck, that it might be mistaken for one. The birds and fish are no less singular than the beasts. There is a singular fish, which when left uncovered by the ebbing of the tide, leaps about like the grasshopper, by means of strong fins. [Illustration]