y do not always follow their fugitive
husbands from the field, but frequently go over, as a matter of course,
to the victors, even with young children on their backs; and thus it was,
probably, after we had made the lower tribes sensible of our superiority,
that the three gins followed our party, beseeching us to take them with
us.

Depending chiefly on the river for subsistence, they do not wander so
much as those who hunt the kangaroo and opossum in the higher country
near our colony. Hence the more permanent nature of the huts on the
Darling; and it would appear that different tribes occupy different
portions of the river. The Spitting tribe desired our men to pour out the
water from the buckets, as if it had belonged to them; digging at the
same time a hole in the ground to receive it when poured out; and I have
more than once seen a river chief, on receiving a tomahawk, point to the
stream and signify that we were then at liberty to take water from it, so
strongly were they possessed with the notion that the water was their
own.

We saw no kangaroos lower down than Dunlop's range, neither did we see
any emus. In the red sandhills were many burrows of the wombat, but these
also became scarce as we proceeded downwards.

SINGULAR HABITS OF A RAT.

A species of rat* was remarkable for the ingenious fabric it raised to
secure itself from the native dog or birds of prey. The structure
consisted of a rick or stack of small branches, commonly worked around
and interlaced with some small bush, the whole resembling a pile laid for
one of the signal fires so much used by the natives. As these heaps of
dead boughs drew the attention of our dogs we at length examined several
of them and always found a small nest in the centre occupied by the same
kind of rat. This animal had ears exactly resembling those of a small
rabbit, soft downy wool and short hind legs; indeed but for the tail it
might have passed for a small rabbit.

(*Footnote. Conilurus constructor. Ogilby.)

SECURITY OF A SPECIES OF ANTS.

The work of an ant peculiar to the country also attracted our attention.
Instead of a mound these insects made a habitation or excavation under
the surface, about six feet in diameter, and it was quite smooth, level
and clean, as if constantly swept. It was also nearly as hard as stone;
and the only access to it was by one or two small holes. This surface
was, to us, on first advancing into the interior, one of its wonders.