354 A NATURALIST ON THE " CHALLENGER." 



very common, sitting in small flocks in rows on wires stretched 

 for drying clothes near one of the houses, just as swallows sit on 

 telegraph wires in England. The birds made excursions after 

 flies, flying just like swallows, and returned to their perching 

 place. Those which I shot all had their feathers at the bases 

 of their bills clogged with pollen from the flowers, in which no 

 doubt they had been searching for insects ; like some humming- 

 birds, they must act as fertilizers, carrying pollen from one flower 

 to another. 



In all my excursions I was accompanied by Blacks. An 

 encampment of natives lay at about half a mile from the shore ; 

 the camp was a small one, and composed of the remnants of 

 three tribes. There were 21 natives in this camp when I visited 

 it early one morning in search of a guide, before daybreak, 

 before the Blacks were awake. Of these 21, about six were adult 

 males, one of whom was employed at the water police station 

 during the day time ; there were four boys of from ten to four- 

 teen years, two young girls, two old women, two middle-aged 

 women, and the remainder were young women. 



One of the old women was the mother of Longway, who 

 acted as my guide, and who had a son about ten years old. The 

 Blacks were mostly of the Gudang tribe, a vocabulary of the 

 language of which is given in the Appendix to MacGillivray's 

 " Voyage of the ' Eattlesnake.' "* The natives were in a lower con- 

 dition than I had expected. Their camp consisted of an irregu- 

 larly oval space concealed in the bushes, at some distance off 

 one of the paths through the forest. In the centre were low 

 heaps of wood ashes with fire-sticks smouldering on them. All 

 around was a shallow groove or depression, caused partly by the 

 constant lying and sitting of the Blacks in it, partly by the 

 gradual accumulation of ashes inside, and the casting of 

 these and other refuse immediately outside it. On the outer 

 side of this groove or form, were stuck up at an angle, large 

 leaves of a Fan Palm here and there so as form a shelter, and 

 under the shelter of these the Blacks huddled together at night 

 to sleep. 



A camp of this shape with a slight mound inside, and a 

 * For a further account of Cape York, see Jukes, " Voyage of the ' Fly.' ' 



