174 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXIV. 



naturalists and enthusiasts every one of them. The garden 

 attached to the house is worth going a long way to see ; here 

 were to be seen some magnificent specimens of highly coloured 

 Coleus, with leaves as big as those of cabbages, Clerodendroit 

 Baljouri, Allamanda Wardleyana, with paw-paws, grenadillas, 

 mangoes, and other tropical fruits in abundance. In and around 

 this little tropical Eden may be seen the splendid butterflies, 

 Ornithoptera caasandra (green and black), Papilio nli/sses (blue), 

 and hosts of others of more or less sliowy colours. Mount 

 Olive, so named by its genial owner, is noted for its natural 

 beauty, its enormous Pythons, and Deaf Adders, the former being 

 frequently kept for the purpose of keeping down the rats and 

 mice, which are a great scourge in many parts of Queensland. 

 Wild pigs are common here. 



We had a nice buggy drive to the Annan River, but the 

 banana plantations there were by no means up to my expecta- 

 tions. The river is fairly wide, and is frequented by lots of very 

 fine fish (which the natives obtain by spearing), as well as large 

 crocodiles, C. porosus, with a smaller and harmless species. In 

 driving from Cooktown to this place we passed through a dry, 

 Australian type of country with lots of dead trees, upon which I 

 was greatly surprised to see fine specimens of orchids, mostly, I 

 should say, Dendrobiums, but how these lived and thrived on 

 such dry material was a puzzle to me. 



We saw here little of the real jungle, but seeing some fine 

 pendent Lycopodiums, which had been gathered, at once 

 convinced me that plenty of jungle must exist somewhere in 

 the neighbourhood. The country between the Annan and 

 Bloomfield Rivers is the home of the Tree-climbing Kangaroo 

 and the so-called Striped Opossum, with swarms of ants every- 

 where. When at the Annan River I obtained a specimen (dug 

 up out of the mud by Billy, Mr. Olive's blackfellow) of a singular 

 fish, the Tree-climbing Perch, an ugly-looking beast which I was 

 told climbs, or rather shuffles, to a considerable height up the 

 Mangrove stems, but only when these trees are growing at a 

 considerable incline. I made arrangements to procure a good 

 series of this fish, together with some marvellous new worms, and 

 when these reach me they will be presented to the National 

 Museum. 



I have already mentioned having met Mr. Gibson, one of the 

 good old hardy Scotch pioneer squatters, and who by the way is 

 uncle to Mr. T. G. Sloane, the well-known entomologist of New 

 South Wales and an old member of our Club, and from Mr. 

 Gibson I obtained the following interestmg particulars. Riding 

 one day in company with two stock hands, Mr. Gibson's attention 

 was directed to some smoke and a peculiar smell of burning 

 flesh, and on seeking the cause he found a small camp of blacks ; 



