by the great squatting district of New England and Liverpool Plains, to which access is obtained by a deep cleft through a spur of the Australian cordilleras, called the Liverpool Range, which bounds the Liverpool Plains in a northerly direction. A great and increasing steam communication exists between Sydney and Hunter River.
Port Stephens is a large estuary fifteen miles in length and contracted to about a mile in breadth in the centre, into which the rivers Karuah and Myall flow. The Karuah is navigable for twelve miles only for small craft to Booral, a village built by the Australian Agricultural Company. The valley of the Karuah, in the county of Gloucester, is chiefly in the possession of the Australian Agricultural Company, and pronounced by Count Strzelecki to be one of the finest agricultural districts in the colony.
On this estate some of the rarest birds of Australia are found. The wonga wonga pigeon (Leucosarcia picata) is a large bird, with white flesh, excellent eating, with handsome black-patched plumage, which spends most of its time upon the ground, "feeding upon the seeds of stones of the fallen fruits of the towering trees under whose shade it dwells, seldom exposing itself to the rays of the sun, or seeking the open parts of the forest, whence when disturbed it rises with a loud fluttering, like a pheasant. Its flight is not of long duration, being merely employed to remove it to a sufficient distance to avoid detection by again descending to the ground or mounting the branch of a tree. It is a species which bears confinement well." The accompanying
WONGA WONGA PIGEON.
