skull was
bracchy-cephalous, dolichophalous, or polycephalous. I think that
was the way he expressed it. I said there was very likely a hole in
it, and it would be spoiled; but he said the hole would make no
difference. I would do almost anything for science and money, but he
did not offer me any, and I did not think a six months' mummy was old
enough to steal; it was too fresh. If that scientist would borrow a
spade and dig up the corpse himself, I would go away to a sufficient
distance and close my eyes and nose until he had deposited the relic
in his carpet bag. But I was too conscientious to be accessory to
the crime of body-snatching, and he had not courage enough to do the
foul deed. That land is now fenced in, and people dwell there. The
bones of the last of the Barrabools still rest under somebody's
house, or fertilise a few feet of a garden plot.

ON THE NINETY-MILE.

A HOME BY A REMOTER SEA.

The Ninety-Mile, washed by the Pacific, is the sea shore of
Gippsland. It has been formed by the mills of two oceans, which for
countless ages have been slowly grinding into meal the rocks on the
southern coast of Australia; and every swirling tide and howling gale
has helped to build up the beach. The hot winds of summer scorch the
dry sand, and spin it into smooth, conical hills. Amongst these, low
shrubs with grey-green leaves take root, and thrive and flourish
under the salt sea spray where other trees would die. Strange
plants, with pulpy leaves and brilliant flowers, send forth long
green lines, having no visible beginning or end, which cling to the
sand and weave over it a network of vegetation, binding together the
billowy dunes.

The beach is broken in places by narrow channels, through which the
tide rushes, and wanders in many currents among low mudbanks studded
with shellfish--the feeding grounds of ducks, and gulls, and swans;
and around a thousand islands whose soil has been woven together by
the roots of the spiky mangrove, or stunted tea-tree. Upon the muddy
flats, scarcely above the level of the water, the black swans build
their great circular nests, with long grass and roots compacted with
slime. Salt marshes and swamps, dotted with bunches of rough grass,
stretch away behind the hummocks. Here, towards the end of the
summer, the blacks used to reap their harvest of fat eels, which they
drew forth from the soft mud under the roots of the tussocks.

The country between the sea and