1891.] 283 



On the 8th I started from Port Darwin on a week's leave, for a 

 trip up the railway line, which extends about 150 miles into the in- 

 terior to a place called " Pine Creek ;" I was kindly furnished by the 

 authorities with a 1st class pass to the end of the line, but after making 

 due enquiries, I resolved to at least break the journey at the "Adelaide 

 River " Station, 77 miles from Port Darwin, the presence of permanent 

 water being a great inducement to me to stay there. I left at 8 a.m., 

 and it was a somewhat monotonous ride through a flat or slightly 

 undulating country, covered with the endless Eucalyptus forest, and 

 diversified only by the huge nests of the Termites, some of which were 

 fully 15 or IS feet high ; one very remarkable kind, seen in only one 

 or two places along the line, being of a thin, fiat, wedge-shape, about 5 

 feet high, and what is most singular, the long direction of the sides 

 is invariably the same, viz., north and south. I greatly regretted that 

 I had no opportunity of closely examining these remarkable nests, 

 which I do not remember having seen any account of in all the books 

 I have come across. Arriving at the Adelaide River soon after noon, 

 I saw at once that it was the best place so far on the line, so having 

 obtained good, though somew^hat homely, accommodation, I stayed here 

 until noon of the 12th. The river, which falls into the sea to the 

 eastward of Port Darwin, about 120 miles from my position, consisted 

 mainly of a series of deep pools of beautifully clear and pure water, 

 connected by a shallow rapid stream flowing over a bed of coarse 

 gravel ; in the rainy season it reaches a level of more than 30 feet 

 above the present one, as shown by the flood-rubbish entangled in the 

 branches of the trees. A dense and luxuriant belt of bamboos, Ficus, 

 etc., fringes both banks of the river, the surrounding country being 

 as usual lightly timbered with Eucalyptus, Pandanus, Casuarina, Gre- 

 villea (the latter tree now leafless, but a mass of scarlet blossom, the 

 resort of flocks of most noisy green and crimson parrots), and with 

 long coarse grass underneath, very few flow^ers, except a few Compositse. 

 There were not many butterflies, though Eurycus was fairly common, 

 and I got a pretty Precis wqw to me, one Charaxes Sempronius, one or 

 two Lycaence new to me, &c. Beetles were, I soon found, to be had 

 by diligent working, and during my stay I must have got at least 150 

 species (I have already mounted over 100) ; the sweeping for about 

 half-an-hour at sunset was very good, and I was astonished at the 

 number of European, and even British, genera which turned up — 

 varied of course by exotic-looking things, but not nearly to the degree 

 which I should have imagined. Such things as Bledius, Philonthus, 

 Bemhidium, Apion, Nanophyes?, ChiJocorus (blue sp.), Bypocyptus, 



DD 2 



