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prior to his death he had a narrow escape from drowning. This caused his wife to remonstrate with him, so next morning, after saying she should have no reason to speak to him so again, he passed into the farm-yard, and shot himself behind a haystack. H e was widely known, and deeply regretted. In olden times there flourished in the centre of our present Parliament Reserve, facing Bourke Street, an immense gum-tree—one of those forest monarchs whose birth dated back to a time of which there is no written or traditional evidence. T h e Melbournians taking their evening country stroll to inhale the pure air of the then Eastern Hill, were proud of this umbrageous remnant of ancient forestry, and m a n y a spicy colonial yarn was spun beneath its shadow. O n the evening of the 23rd June, 1849, some mischievous urchins were playing around its trunk, and one of them set it on fire. W h e n darkness came, the youngsters went away, and nothing particular of the tree was noticed until about midnight, when it blazed forth such a Baal fire as would gladden the hearts of the Antipodean Druids of yore. Towards morning it fell with a crash, and the next day a mixed m o b of m e n and w o m e n collected, and armed with axes and tomahawks, had a regular field-day of wood chopping. On the 24th of same month Henry Major, chief mate of the schooner " Sophia," berthed at Cole's Wharf, died from suffocation. T h e vessel was infested with rats, and fumigation being determined on as a means of abolishing the pest, a fire was lighted, and every aperture closed for the night. Next morning the captain went on board, and raising the main hatch, he saw Major lying on the floor, dead. A coroner's jury attributed death to the inhalation of sulphur. On the same day, a pig of the astonishing weight of 644 lbs. was slaughtered at Mr. Blastock's Grange fun, Belfast. One chilly evening in June, Mr. Wilson, a chemist in Collins Street, was enjoying the comfort of his parlourfire,when two immense snakes jumped out of some burning logs, and set up a wriggling dance too close to his legs to be agreeable. Jumping from his chair, and seizing a carving-knife, he bi-sected them with the effect only of rendering them more lively. H e repeated the chopping, yet the several parts shewed no signs of dying, until an application of prussic acid gave them a quietus. The death of the most aged man in Port Phillip at that time, occurred on the 8th July, in Latrobe Street, when William Devine, a very worthy old fellow, bade the world farewell, just after turning his ninety-fifth year. Some very clever pen-and-ink forgeries of ;£io-notes were uttered in September. They were supposed to be the handiwork of the " Penton-villians." T h e forgeries were executed on baked paper to give them crispness, and the plate portion though a clumsy imitation, when discoloured, the valueless considerations were liable to deceive. They purported to be Bank of Australasians, and the autograph of " D. C. M'Arthur," the manager, was as near perfection as a counterfeit could well be. Stories of the bunyip occasionally sprang up, to be believed by the credulous and laughed at In October, M r . John Edwards, managing clerk to M r . Henry Moor, Solicitor, by the majority. retailed the following questionable yarn, which he solemnly avouched to be a fact. H e was on board the " T h a m e s " steamer, endeavouring to intercept a defaulting runaway named Hovenden, supposed to have levanted in a Sydney-bound vessel. T h e " T h a m e s " put into Phillip Island, and whilst there (sic dixit Edwards) an object was seen one day squatted on a rock in a lake, and the spectators could not well m a k e out what it was. It appeared to be some seven feet in longitude, and looked half m a n and half baboon, with the long feathered neck of the e m u . Five gunshots were discharged at it with these effects : — A t N o . 1, it only shook its head, the second caused it to grin fiercely and show its teeth, with the third it backed towards the water; shot four was answered by a loud noise composed in equal parts of growl and shout; whilst the fifth and last was acknowledged by a jump in the air,