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for so many months beneath the Crystal Palace. The mountains in Australia are high and bold in outline, and the snow-capped Alps on the boundaries of New South Wales are not unlike their European namesakes, the highest tops are from six to seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. The country round Ballarat is more in the North American style, and when the creek is full, it is a fine sight, greatly resembling, I have beard, one of the smaller rivers in Canada; in fact, the scenery round Ballarat is said to approach more to Upper Canada than any in the colony. 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. The natives call them "kanguru." The tail is of great strength. There are several varieties of them. The largest is the Great Kangaroo, of a greyish-brown colour, generally four or five feet high and the tail three. Some kangaroos are nearly white, others resemble the hare in colour. Pugs, or young kangaroos, are plentiful about the marshy grounds; so are also the opossum and kangaroo rat. The latter is not a rat, properly speaking,
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