THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 19 



A TRIP TO THE BLOOMFIELD RIVER DISTRICT, 

 NORTH QUEENSLAND. 

 By D. Le Souef. 

 (Bead before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 8th March, 1897.) 

 A few days after the trip to Mt. Peter Botte we paid a visit to 

 the Hope Islands, situated eleven miles from the mouth of the 

 Bloomfield River. Leaving Wyalla in the evening, we walked to 

 the river and camped there for the night, starting shortly after 

 daylight next morning in the cutter, but as the breeze was very 

 light we did not reach the islands until midday. The tide being 

 out, we anchored the boat in shallow water and waded ashore ; 

 there were two islands, one composed of dead coral and the 

 other of sand, and they were about half a mile apart. The 

 former one was visited first, and we found it to be about three- 

 quarters of a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad, mostly 

 fringed with a dense growth of mangroves. Walking over the 

 dead coral by which the island was surrounded was trying and 

 slow work, as the points were very sharp, and it was practically 

 impossible to walk over it with bare feet. In the small salt- 

 water inlets fish swarmed ; there were also many clam shells, and 

 one had to be careful when wading through the water not to put 

 one's foot into them, as they were of course open and resting 

 with their orifice upwards, and the fish being green, looked very 

 similar to seaweed. They have great strength, and if they closed 

 on a portion of one's foot it would be very awkward, as the shells 

 are hard and thick, and difficult to break. When disturbed, the 

 fish quickly closes its shell, squirting out water when they do so. 

 There appears to be two kinds, the smaller one on the sand, and 

 the other, which grows to a great size, in small cavities on the 

 coral, which cavity, as they grow larger, increases in size to cor- 

 respond with the shell, but in what way the clam enlarges the 

 hole I cannot say. The biggest pair of shells I ever saw are the 

 ones I possess, and they weigh 4 cvvt., but what their weight was 

 with the fish in I am unable to state, but it must have been con- 

 siderable. 



Some White and Sombre Reef Herons flew away from where 

 we landed, and a nest of the latter was quickly found with two 

 nearly fully fledged young ones in it, and many other nests were 

 discovered of both birds, but all were old. I do not think that 

 they breed until April, that being the month that Mr. R. Hislop 

 got several fresh clutches of their eggs. At one end of the island 

 Panayan Terns, Sterna ancestheta, were noticed flying about in 

 great numbers and in a high state of alarm, and on going there 

 and hunting on the ground, among the scanty vegetation, just 

 above high water mark, we succeeded in finding many of their 

 single eggs, laid on the bare ground under some cover, such as 



