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SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
291

MEGAPODIUS, OR MOUND-BUILDING BIRD.

marsh; 3. Gawler; 4. Light; 5. Sturt; 6. Eyre; 7. Stanley; 8. Flinders; 9. Russell; 10. Robe; 11. Grey.

The county of Adelaide is that in which cultivation is most extensively carried on, the other districts being chiefly occupied for grazing, as the difficulty of getting crops to market prevents sellers from raising more than for their own consumption. But in every favourable situation vineyards are making great progress.

Port Adelaide has a population of 2,000, who find occupation in the extensive movements of a large export and import trade. The primitive appearance of the Mangrove Creek, through which the disconsolate first colonists waded, has disappeared.

A road of seven miles, through sterile, sandy ground, leads to the city, which is traversed by conveyances of all kinds, from the heavy dray to the omnibus and smart dog-cart. Crossing the Torrens by a wooden bridge, one of four which is occasionally swept away by the torrents, after performing a sinecure duty for many months, the city of Adelaide appears in the midst of trees, often full of most rare and curious birds, which migrate periodically from the colder to the hotter climates, in a warm, pretty, and dusty valley. Adelaide, although very unlike a city according to European notions, presents a much more pleasing appearance than Melbourne, which is crowded into a narrow valley, without squares, park, or boulevard. In the park lands surrounding and intersecting the straggling streets of the former, which are as picturesque as Wiesbaden or Cheltenham, although less finished,