feathers of its tail, which are fifteen inches long, while the
body is barely five, are placed in vertical pofitions like thofe of
the domeftic cock. The bounty of nature feems to have been
extended to this bird to its difadvantage ; its tail, when on the'
wing, impeding, inftead o f alfifting, its flight. This long tail,
however, endures but the feafon o f love. In the winter it
affumes the fame as that of the female, ihort, brown, and horizontal,
and it can then fly like other birds. The change of
plumage, in many birds, from that of the male to the female,
and the contrary, has led fome fpeculative naturalifts to adopt
an opinion that a change o f fex alfo actually takes place. This,
however, is not the cafe with refpedt to the two birds in quef-
tion; The long-tailed finch appears to be one of thofe
few of the feathered tribe that, in a ftate o f nature, are found
to be polygamous. I have frequently feen from thirty to forty
o f their-nefts together in one clump of reeds, but never more
than two males at one place. The conftrudtion of their nefts
is very curious. Thefe are entirely compofed of green grafs
neatly plaited into a round ball, and knotted fail between the
ftems of two reeds. The entrance is through a tube whofe
orifice is on the under fide, next to the water.
The termination of the Snowy mountains is about twelve
miles to the north-eaftward o f Compafsberg; and here a port
or pafs through them opens upon a plain extending to the
northward, without a fwell, farther than the eye could command.
Eight milei beyond this pafs we encamped for the
night, when the weather was more raw and cold than we had
hitherto experienced on the Sneuwberg. The thick clouds
being
being at length diflipated by the fun, the Compafsberg {hewed
itfelf white near the fummit with fnow.
The divifion of Sneuwberg comprehends a great extent of
country. The moment we had afcended from the plains behind
GraafF Reynet to thofe more elevated of Sneuwberg, the
difference of the face of the country and its natural productions
were remarkably ftriking. One of the chara£ters of the
African mountains, as already has been noticed, is that o f having
one of their fides fteep and lofty, whilft the oppofite one
gradually Hoped off in an inclined plane. The Compafsberg is
the laft to the northward that prefents a bold and high front
to the fouthern horizon. Beyond this the northern afpefts of
the mountains are the higheft.
It was an obfervation fufficiently ftriking, and which muff
have occurred to every one who has been the leaft attentive to
the mountains and rivers of South Africa, that the afcent of
the former invariably increafes with the .defcent of the latter j
or, in other words, that the higheft fides of the mountains face
that quarter towards which the rivers flow, whilft their Hoping
fides are' oppofed to the ftreams. That fuch, indeed, are the
appearances, which ought to prefent themfelves on the iurface
of every country of Neptunian origin, is conformable to what
may eyery day be obferved, on a fmall fcale, in the beds of
rivers and moft water-courfes. The banks of earth or land,
that the current of waters has there depofited, have always
their higheft points down the ftream. The reafon is too
obvious to require- an explanation. The formation of fuch
banks