Vol. XXVIII. 

 igii 



] DoDD, A Collecting Trip to Herberton District, N.Q. 135 



Damara australis, perhaps 8 feet through and 120 feet high, 

 are plentiful in the scrub ; but, not having actually measured 

 them, I must be careful, for, not long ago, wonderful stories 

 were told and published about North Queensland and its 

 scrubs, its wild blacks, fearful storms, wonderful birds, &c. 



These notes are absolute facts, and I have no desire to pose 

 as a hero, or marvellous climber, and discoverer of what does not 

 exist. For instance, the remarkable Tooth-billed Bower-bird, 

 which is rarely found below 1,500 feet, has been recorded as an 

 eater of snails, cracking the shells on a stone regularly visited 

 for the purpose. Along with Mr. Sharpe and others, I have ex- 

 amined hundreds of play-grounds of this bird, and have failed 

 to find a shell, or even a fragment, on or near any of them. 

 Nor have we found a stone, or log, or anything else with 

 signs of shells having been cracked thereon. A person may 

 travel through the scrubs, particularly the higher ones, for a 

 whole day at any season of the year and not see a single live 

 snail, because they are by no means plentiful, and, again, they 

 are strictly nocturnal, while the bird is not. Even if one of 

 the birds differed so much from its kindred as to find the 

 snails and crack them on a stone near its play-ground, it would 

 not be likely to again differ and allow the fragments to remain 

 scattered therein, as has been represented in a recent photo- 

 graph. Neither does the Grey Bower-bird, Chlamydodera 

 orientalis, ornament the inside of its bower with pieces of 

 coloured glass. Those pieces which were reported to have 

 been seen artistically arranged amongst the erect twigs had 

 doubtless been placed there by the hands of the school children 

 of the district, who often visited that particular bower, which 

 was close to a township, and, in fact, occupied the site of a hotel 

 of the earlier coaching days. Nor did we observe Cassowaries 

 bumping the trees to shake down their fruits, or come across 

 wondrous vines which covered many acres of scrub, nor even 

 one which covered one acre. Such a vine would be a wonder ; 

 but one covering many acres would truly be the marvel of the 

 vegetable kingdom. Those, therefore, who look for marvels 

 in these notes will be disappointed. It is regrettable that the 

 truth is often commonplace and dull, and it seems that there 

 are several persons writing on Australian natural history matters 

 who recognize this, and are enterprising enough to have set them- 

 selves to rectify such a state of things. The same writer recorded 

 fearful storms in the Atherton district towards the end of igo8, 

 which produced sudden and alarming floods in the Barron River ; 

 but the remarkable feature of the record is that only this one 

 person seems to have seen the havoc wrought by these dreadful 

 storms or the terrible floods. He states that great trees were 

 snapped off in a wholesale manner. My experience of several 



