Upper Yackandanda, December 18th, 1853.

This country is certainly a splendid field for the naturalist. The animals are most curious; the birds are almost endless in variety, singular in habits, and the notes of many of them are peculiarly musical. We find fresh ones in every new part of the country that we visit. The Blue Mountain parrot, a splendid bird of deep red and brilliant blue, has many very musical notes. The flowers of the colony are immensely numerous in species; and, though generally small, many of them are very beautiful. There grows in the woods here a clematis which we have seen nowhere else (Clematis appendiculata); a very beautiful thing, with large white and very fragrant blossoms. This clematis hangs on the bushes and young trees in lovely masses. There is a plant of it near our tent, running over the fallen bole of a huge blue gum-tree like a garland. It is worthy of a painter. There is also, in the wet places of the woods, a yellow-flowered rush, which smells exactly like pine-apple (Xerotes longlfolia).

The insects, as I have often said, are countless; swarm everywhere, and over everything. Their tenacity of life is most amazing. I have told you of the manner in which one half of a bulldog ant fights the other if cut in two. I saw an instance of it just now. Our giant cut one in two that was annoying him.