THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 165 



passing over a creek with pools of clear water, we noticed many 

 crustaceans, and their principal occupation seemed to be in 

 keeping out of one another's way, especially the smaller ones 

 away from the bigger ; some of them had lost their large claw, 

 probably in fighting. We passed a high tree in which a flock of 

 Shining Calornis, Calomis metallica, were nesting. The ground 

 below was, as usual, covered with nutmeg seeds, but remember- 

 ing my former experience with the ticks I did not go under it. 

 Blue and other butterflies were seen flitting about the open spaces 

 over the creeks. 



We arrived at our previous camp at midday, being able to 

 travel faster down hill, and found all our goods intact, and 

 after an hour's rest started off again for the coast with all our 

 luggage, and were well laden, and arrived at Emmergen Creek 

 before sundown, after a hard day's journey and rough and often 

 difficult climbing, which I have no desire to undertake again. 

 Four of the natives started off again towards the Bloomfield 

 River, to a blacks' camp some distance off, but of course 

 they took no luggage, as we had arranged for the cutter to 

 come round for us and our belongings. I noticed that the 

 soles of the feet of the blacks was nearly white. We felt 

 a few sandflies, which were absent from the higher country. 

 When I was some little distance from the camp five men 

 carrying their swags came up to me and commenced talking 

 in Italian. They couldn't muster one sentence in English 

 between them, and would not talk French. They said they 

 were travelling overland to Cape York and were Italians. I 

 brought them on to our camp, which my companions did not 

 appreciate, as they at once took them to be French convicts just 

 landed, and such they afterwards proved to be, so we sent our 

 black boy on with them to where there was fresh water, so that 

 they could camp there, but on going over later in the evening I 

 found that they had not done so. Our old guide, who had had 

 a cooked Tree Kangaroo given him at our highest camp, but was 

 not sufficiently hungry to eat it, kept it for his breakfast, but not 

 having the necessary appetite then, and not liking to waste it, he 

 brought it down to this camp, carrying it principally, when in the 

 open country, on his head. The day was very hot and flies 

 troublesome, and his looked-forward-to meal was getting high and 

 lively. In the evening he ate the food we gave him, and once 

 more put his kangaroo on the roof of his humpy to keep for his 

 breakfast ; but it couldn't last for ever, and finally he had to 

 regretfully leave it behind uneaten. 



During the evening a small shark was caught in the creek, and 

 our old native went out wading in the shallow sea, as the tide 

 was very far out, and speared three fish. I took some photo- 

 graphs here of the Mangrove trees, to show the wonderful way 



