The Rocks, Although Not High,
Are In Places Very Bold And Romantic, And In The Wet Season There Are
Several Water-Falls In The Neighbourhood.
Eels are very plentiful in Victoria, and are peculiar to this district,
being seldom, if ever, found in any
Other part of the known continent.
Old writers on Australia have stated that eels are unknown in this part
of the world, which, since this colony has been settled in, has been
found to be erroneous, as the Barwin, the Yarra Yarra, and their
tributaries abound with them, some weighing five or six pounds. A few
days after our return from the diggings, we breakfasted off a dish of
stewed eels, caught by a friend; the smallest weighed about a pound and
a half, the largest about three pounds. They were caught three miles
from Melbourne, in the Salt Water Creek.
A small kind of fish like the lamprey, another similar to the gudgeon,
and also one (of rather a larger kind - the size of the roach) called
here "white herrings," but not at all resembling that fish, are found.
Pike are also very numerous. Crabs and lobsters are not known here, but
in the salt creeks near the sea we have craw-fish.
Of course, parrots, cockatoos and "sich-like," abound in the
bush, to the horror of the small gardeners and cultivators, as what
they do not eat they ruin by destroying the young shoots.
Kangaroos are extremely numerous in the scrub. They are the size of a
large greyhound, and of a mouse colour.
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