The population of the Darling seemed to have been much reduced by smallpox, or some cutaneous disease which must have been very virulent, considering their dirty mode of living; and its violence was indeed apparent in the marks on those who survived. CONDITION OF THE FEMALES. Considering the industry and skill of their gins or wives in making nets, sewing cloaks, mussel fishing, rooting, etc., and their patient submission to labour, always carrying the bags which contain the whole property of the family, the great value of a gin to one of these lazy fellows may be easily imagined. Accordingly the possession of them appears to be associated with all their ideas of fighting; while on the other hand the gins have it in their power on such occasions to evince that universal characteristic of the fair, a partiality for the brave. Thus it is that after a battle they do not always follow their fugitive husbands from the field, but frequently go over, as a matter of course, to the victors, even with young children on their backs; and thus it was, probably, after we had made the lower tribes sensible of our superiority, that the three gins followed our party, beseeching us to take them with us. Depending chiefly on the river for subsistence, they do not wander so much as those who hunt the kangaroo and opossum in the higher country near our colony. Hence the more permanent nature of the huts on the Darling; and it would appear that different tribes occupy different portions of the river. The Spitting tribe desired our men to pour out the water from the buckets, as if it had belonged to them; digging at the same time a hole in the ground to receive it when poured out; and I have more than once seen a river chief, on receiving a tomahawk, point to the stream and signify that we were then at liberty to take water from it, so strongly were they possessed with the notion that the water was their own. We saw no kangaroos lower down than Dunlop's range, neither did we see any emus. In the red sandhills were many burrows of the wombat, but these also became scarce as we proceeded downwards. SINGULAR HABITS OF A RAT. A species of rat* was remarkable for the ingenious fabric it raised to secure itself from the native dog or birds of prey. The structure consisted of a rick or stack of small branches, commonly worked around and interlaced with some small bush, the whole resembling a pile laid for one of the signal fires so much used by the natives. As these heaps of dead boughs drew the attention of our dogs we at length examined several of them and always found a small nest in the centre occupied by the same kind of rat. This animal had ears exactly resembling those of a small rabbit, soft downy wool and short hind legs; indeed but for the tail it might have passed for a small rabbit. (*Footnote. Conilurus constructor. Ogilby.) SECURITY OF A SPECIES OF ANTS.