During this and the two preceding days the party was tormented by a very large species of mosquito which had not been previously seen on this journey. They were most troublesome when the morning was growing warm. Their colour was grey, and they had thin black parallel stripes on the back. We met these tormenting insects on first entering the woods from the plains. During the drought a smaller species had been troublesome at night, as I had frequently experienced when obliged to sit, sextant in hand, awaiting the passage of stars near the meridian. I found that the burning a little bullock dung in my tent cleared it of all mosquitoes for the night. February 23. This morning we were early en route in hopes to reach the Namoi. I took care to find again the tree which bore the yellow flowers; as it certainly was rare, being the only one of the description seen throughout the journey. Now however the flowers had given place to young fruit which were of the size of an acorn, and grew on a long hooked stalk.* (*Footnote. See Chapter 2.8 of next Journey for a description of this tree.) In crossing the low ridge which separates the plains from the Namoi we again toiled through very soft ground. It occurred chiefly on the sides of slopes, and in the midst of forests of eucalypti, where I should have expected the hardest kind of surface. We made the Namoi however in good time; this being the first of our former stages which we had been able to accomplish in one day since the wet weather commenced. The late rains had produced no change in the waters of this river; a circumstance showing perhaps that less had fallen in the south-east than on the plains where we had been. None of the kind of fish that we most prized (Gristes peelii) could now be caught in this river, though abundance of that which the men commonly called bream (Cernua bidyana) a very coarse but firm fish which makes a groaning noise when taken out of the water; and here it may be observed that the colour of the cod or Peel's perch was lighter, and that of the eel-fish (tandanus) darker in the Karaula than in any other river. REGAIN THE NAMOI. February 24. A fine cool morning. I attempted to cut off a slight detour in our old track by travelling nearer to the course of the Namoi; but a soft and swampy flat soon compelled me to seek the former wheel-marks, and even to proceed still nearer to the base of the hills, for the sake of hard ground. We next travelled westward of our line, thus crossing an excellent tract of country; and without further impediment we arrived on Maule's creek, which we crossed with all our carts and equipment to encamp on the left bank. The limpid stream was not much, if at all, augmented.