Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Emu, 1907-1908, Vol. 7: A Quarterly Magazine to Popularise the Study and Protection of Native Birds
The area under consideration is situated some 20 miles north west Of Melbourne, and is part of that extensive rich pastoral country that attracted the first settlers in Victoria's early colonial history. Through it lay the main route to the central goldfields, that were discovered in 1851 and thronged with hundreds of thousands of fortune-seekers from all quarters of the globe. My early field Observations extend back to 1846, when, as a young man on my father's station, I roamed the country far and wide. Most of the area is of basaltic origin, and the higher land to the rear marks the position whence, from great fissures and volcanic vents, the ancient lava poured out south ward as far as Melbourne and Geelong. The subterranean hills of this ancient gold-bearing rock are shown in many places along the creek sides, where the water action has cut down through the superincumbent beds Of lava, and exposed them to view. Timber was not plentiful 011 the basalt, though 011 the silurian ridges to the north, and thence inland, the forests of eucalypts were dense. My area and my list Of birds have been in?uenced by this Silurian country, for therefrom the lava fields received their first supply of vegetation and Of bird life in past times, and from there in the present certain species of birds make annual or periodic incursions on to what is not essentially their true habitat.
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