96 FITZROY ISLAND. 



a short time to form a station^ we finally came to 

 under Fitzroy Island^ half a mile from the shore. 

 This island is ahout fiYe miles in circumference, hio-h 

 and well- wooded^ with two peaks^ one of which is 861 

 feet in height. The rock^ when exposed^ is granitic. 

 The small hay on the western side of the island^ 

 where the ship lay^ has a steep heach of fragments 

 of dead coral^ through which oozes the water of two 

 streamlets^ at one of which the ship completed her 

 stock with great facilit}'. Following upwards one 

 of the two branches of the principal stream through 

 a narrow gully^ one reaches a small basin-like 

 valley^ filled with dense brushy through which it is 

 difficult to pasS; on account of the unusual quantity 

 of the prickly Calamus palm. Several trees of the 

 pomegranate (Punica Granatum) were met with 

 bearing fruit ; as this plant is found wild in India^ 

 and here occurred in the centre of a thick brush not 

 likely to have been visited by Europeans^ it is 

 probably indigenous. A kind of yam [Dioscoi^ea 

 hulhifera) was found here^ and proved good eating-. 

 In consequence of this^ a party from the ship was 

 sent to dig- for more^ but^ having mistaken the plant^ 

 they expended all their time and trouble in rooting* 

 up a convolvulus^ with small^ inedible^ and probably 

 cathartic tubers. 



A new species of large fruit-eating bat^ or '' flyings- 

 fox/' (Pteropiis coiispicillatus), making the third 

 Australian member of the g-enus^ was discovered 

 here. On the wooded slope of a hill I one day fell 



