Vol. XX VI II 



1911 



1 DoDD, A Collecting Trip to Herherton District, N.Q. 133 



our journey the country was well timbered with tall White 

 Gums, Eucalyptus tereticornis, Bloodwoods, E. corymbosa, and 

 two species of Casuarina, one having long, slender, drooping 

 branches. This and the small mountain species was new to me. 



" Cressbrook " is a dairy, worked by Mrs. Hull and several 

 grown-up daughters — young \Yomen stout and strong, equally 

 at home in the saddle or house, and quite unconcerned if out 

 in pelting rain all day long. Mill Creek, which runs close to 

 the house, is an ever-flowing and watercress- fringed stream 

 of cool and pure water — except in times of heavy rain. 

 Here my son and I spent three very busy months. To be 

 exact, our location was about forty-five miles due west of 

 Mourilyan Harbour, but with many impenetrable ranges 

 between. 



All new localities have an extraordinary charm for the 

 naturalist. At first, as the many new species came to light, 

 our interest was unbounded ; but as time wore on, and 

 nothing unusually remarkable was discovered, we experienced 

 a slight feeling of disappointment. Were it not that we col- 

 lected specimens of most of the orders, more particularly of 

 Lepidoptera, our trip would have been a somewhat unsatis- 

 factory one. However, we specially desired Micro-lepidoptera, 

 and of these were successful in making a very fine collection. 

 Perhaps I had better refer to each order separately, touching 

 briefly upon the larger or more curious species collected or 

 noted. 



When I arrived the country was brown and dry, the coastal 

 rains of the early summer not having extended to the district, 

 though several drizzly periods had kept the scrub damp. These 

 drizzles favour the growth of moss on nearly all the scrub 

 trees : even on quite small ones great bunches of moss, a foot 

 in length, or as large as a dinner plate, may often be seen 

 hanging on twigs no thicker than a lead pencil. One of these 

 bunches, 15 inches by 10, I brought away with me. 



Thunderstorms had floated past us on both sides for some 

 time — the direction generally from the west — until we were 

 favoured with a good shower ; then, early in January, our 

 first continuous rain, of three or four days, set in, and a little 

 later it was too frequent to be pleasant. The thunderstorms 

 here are more dangerous than near the coast (or at Port 

 Darwin, where they are of almost daily occurrence for four 

 months, and frequently are extremely violent), and we often 

 heard of trees that had been struck by lightning. My son 

 came across one where the lightning, after tearing off a topmost 

 branch, ran down the trunk, causing a groove half an inch deep 

 and a little wider, and stripping away the bark on each side 

 of the groove, the strip of bark removed having a regular width 



