2o6 Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union. [isf^jaii. 



content to risk starvation so long as it may live on its beloved 

 plains. The Black-faced Wood-Swallow, in Queensland at all 

 events, is just as devoted to the dry spaces as its White-rumped 

 relative (.4. Icucogastcr) is fond of the neighbourhood of the sea. 

 Occasional Crow-Shrikes (Magpies, Bell-Magpies, and Butcher- 

 Birds), Finches, Whistlers, Tit-Warblers, Caterpillar-eaters {Campe- 

 phaga humcralis), Fantails, Cuckoos, Cuckoo-Shrikes, and Straw- 

 necked Ibis were among other birds noted. In the forest country 

 Blue-bellied and Scaly-breasted Lorikeets {Trichoglossus swainsoni 

 and T. chlorolepidotus) were remarked to be feeding on the tall 

 spires of the grass-tree {Xanthorrha:a) ; evidently the drought 

 had curtailed the supply of nectar in the eucalypts. With these 

 and other observations the time passed quickly enough ere trippers 

 were dropped at the base camp, in dry forest country-, at the foot 

 of the range. 



It was well then that the climbers had visions of a good time 

 coming to spur them on, for the negotiating of the mountain-side 

 proved to be more of a struggle than was antiApated, even from 

 the guide's exhortations to leave at the base everything in the 

 slightest degree superfluous. The trail, scant and rocky, wound 

 in tired fashion up and up through uninviting forest country that 

 was parched and lifeless. Pinches were abominably steep in 

 places, and, as the sun burned down with increasing ardour and 

 no sign of the promised jungle appeared, it was excusable for 

 perspiring southerners to cherish a suspicion that their Queensland 

 comrades had sold them a gold brick. This feeling had not 

 developed very definitely, however, when, after a climb of three 

 miles, an advanced member of the party hurried back \\\i\\ the 

 news that the camp was within coo-ee, and that Bower-Birds 

 were playing about its grassy approaches. Past regrets and 

 future fears fled from the minds of tired climbers on the instant 

 — even Mrs. Israel ceased to fret after the setting of prize fowls' 

 eggs (acquired somewhere along the way) which had to be left 

 unguarded at the base camp — and in a few minutes all were 

 stepping gratefully under the shade of luxuriant " scrub " that 

 had, as it were, sprung up about them all on a sudden. The turn 

 of a corner then brought to view seven tents and a large marquee 

 nestling in an elbow of a park-like stretch of country, and backed 

 by a densely green wall of vegetation, with, over all, the 

 statuesque forms of the Bunya pines standing like a race apart. 



The Feast of the Bunyas. 



Here it may be said that in this scene was typified two of the 

 remarkable features of the Bunj'a Mountains; The tree from 

 %vhich the range takes its name is very distinctive of the area. 

 Look where you will on these highlands, the gaze must ever be 

 arrested by the towering form and shapely crest of the Arancaria 

 bidwelli. " This tree," writes Dr. John Dunmore Lang (" Cooks- 

 land," p. 135), in quotation of his friend, Andrew Petrie, " grows 



