[24] The building was originally erected as a theatre, at a very great expense, and after its completion the governor, at that time General Darling, refused to grant a licence for dramatic performances, in consequence of which it was fitted up as a spacious hotel. On the present Governor, General Burke, granting permission for theatrical entertainments, a portion of the building has reverted to the original purpose for which the whole had been erected. [25] “It is at least certain that on this microscopic character of the equal existence of cutaneous glands on both surfaces of the leaf, depends that want of lustre which is so remarkable in the forests of New Holland.”—_Sketch of the Botany of the Vicinity of Swan River, by R. Brown, Esq. F.R.S., published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London_, vol. i. 1830, 1831. [26] The dried cones of the _Banksia_ are used by the aborigines for retaining fire, as they will keep ignited for a considerable length of time. [27] The analysis of the chemical properties of this gum is mentioned in Decandolle’s Organographie Végétale, tom i. [28] I remarked that the wood of a species of _Banksia_, (I believe _dentata_,) which was used for firewood, was of a beautiful red colour, and when split in a longitudinal direction displayed a curious interlaced appearance; it had an astringent taste when chewed, staining the saliva of a dark reddish colour, and I think it would be worth trying if a dye would be furnished by it. [29] The _Kennedia_ is called the “woodbine” by some of the shepherds in the colony, who use a decoction of its leaves as a lotion for scabby sheep, and they declare it is a cure for that disease; but their declarations of the curative properties of the plant is not borne out by the experience of others, who have found it quite useless as a remedy for that disease. [30] Among the _Psittaceæ_ tribe is the _Psittacus Novæ Hollandiæ_, curious as being one of the parrot tribe, seen and mentioned by Captain Cook, but is a very rare species in the present known parts of the colony,—(it is, more correctly, a species of cockatoo, and which, I believe, Mr. Vigors has; or intends, to place in a new genus,)—and has not been seen even in those portions of the colony visited by Cook. The specimen in the collection, is one among a few of this species that was seen at Wellington Valley a few years since, during a prevailing drought, and since that period they have not been seen in that or any other known part of the colony. I heard at Yas Plains, that it was not uncommon at some seasons of the year to observe birds, before unknown to the colonists, appear, and soon after again disappear, and are, perhaps, never seen again until years after, and often not at all.