of the
finest pastoral districts of New South Wales, and is in lat. 27 1/2
degrees, would not be liable to the same objections; for I believe no
better wool is produced than in that district, and that only there, and
in Port Phillip, has the sheep farmer been able to clear his expenses
this year. Were it not, therefore, for the almost boundless and still
unoccupied tracts of land within the territory of New South Wales, we
might look with greater anxiety, as regards the pastoral interests of
Australia, to the result of Dr. Leichhardt's labours. At present,
however, there seems to be no limit to the extent either of grazing or of
agricultural land in New South Wales. The only thing to be regretted is,
that the want of an industrious population, keeps it in a state of
nature, and that the thousands who are here obtaining but a precarious
subsistence, should not evince a more earnest desire to go to a country
where most assuredly their condition would be changed for the better.

APPENDIX.

ANIMALS.

But few mammalia inhabit Central Australia. The nature of the country
indeed is such, that we could hardly expect to find any remarkable
variety. The greater part is only tenable after or during heavy rains,
when the hollows in the flats between the sandy ridges contain water. On
such occasions the natives move about the country, and subsist almost
exclusively on the Hapalotis Mitchellii, and an animal they call the
Talpero, a species of Perameles, which is spread over a great extent of
country, being common in the sand hills on the banks of the Darling, to
the S.E. of the Barrier Range, as well as to the sandy ridges in the N.W.
interior, although none were met with to the north of the Stony Desert.

The Hapaloti feed on tender shoots of plants, and must live for many
months together without water, the situation in which we found them
precluding the possibility of their obtaining any for protracted
intervals. They make burrows of great extent, from which the natives
smoke them, and they sometimes procure as many as twelve or eighteen from
one burrow. This animal is grey, the fur is exceedingly soft; although
the animal is in some measure common, I could not procure any skins from
the natives.

Very few kangaroos were seen, none indeed beyond the parallel of 28
degrees. All that were seen were of the common kind, none of the minor
description apparently inhabiting the interior, if I except some Rock
Wallabi,