ever seen anything at all like Melbourne. In other
countries, it is generally the antiquity of the cities, and their
historical reminiscences, which appeal to the imagination; but _here_,
the interest is as great from exactly the opposite cause. It is most
wonderful to walk through a splendid town, with magnificent public
buildings, churches, shops, clubs, theatres, with the streets well
paved and lighted, and to think that less than forty years ago it was a
desolate swamp without even a hut upon it. How little an English country
town progresses in forty years, and here is a splendid city created in
that time! I have no hesitation in saying, that any fashionable novelty
which comes out in either London or Paris finds its way to Melbourne by
the next steamer; for instance, I broke my parasol on board ship, and
the first thing I did on landing was to go to one of the best shops in
Collins Street to replace it. On learning what I wanted, the shopman
showed me some of those new parasols which had just come out in London
before I sailed, and which I had vainly tried to procure in S----, only
four hours from London.

The only public place we have yet visited is the Acclimatization Garden;
which is very beautifully laid out, and full of aviaries, though it
looks strange to see common English birds treated as distinguished
visitors and sumptuously lodged and cared for. Naturally, the Australian
ones interest me most, and they are certainly prettier than yours at
home, though they do not sing. I have been already to a shop where they
sell skins of birds, and have half ruined myself in purchases for hats.
You are to have a "diamond sparrow," a dear little fellow with reddish
brown plumage, and white spots over its body (in this respect a
miniature copy of the Argus pheasant I brought from India), and a
triangular patch of bright yellow under its throat. I saw some of them
alive in a cage in the market with many other kinds of small birds, and
several pairs of those pretty grass or zebra paroquets, which are called
here by the very inharmonious name of "budgerighars." I admired the
blue wren so much--a tiny _birdeen_ with tail and body of dust-coloured
feathers, and head and throat of a most lovely turquoise blue; it has
also a little wattle of these blue feathers standing straight out on
each side of its head, which gives it a very pert appearance. Then there
is the emu-wren, all sad-coloured, but quaint, with the tail-feathers
s