104 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



WINTER NOTES FROM NORTH QUEENSLAND. 

 By F. G. a. Barnard. 



{Read hefure the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, I2th Dec, 1898.) 



It seems hardly right that a member of this Club should visit 

 such a naturalist's paradise as a North Queensland scrub without 

 trying to give his fellow-members some little idea of what is to be 

 seen in a tropical forest. I know I have been preceded by 

 other members of this Club, who have had much more time than 

 I had during my brief holiday, still I have ventured to put 

 together a few notes descriptive of my trip, which extended over 

 about 2,000 miles of the eastern coast-line of Australia. My 

 holiday was taken almost in midwinter, the dull time of the year 

 for naturrl history, although in latitude 16^ S. the winter is quite 

 as warm as our early summer, the great difference in climate 

 being that it is the dry season in the north, their wet season 

 being in January and February. 



I left Melbourne early in July, so as to reach my destination 

 (the Port Douglas district), spend about a fortnight there, and get 

 away again before the hot weather set in. On reaching Sydney 

 I first of all paid a visit to the Botanical Gardens, where 

 the director, Mr. J. H. Maiden, F.L.S., kindly spent some 

 time in showing me the herbarium and economic collection in 

 process of formation, the principal features of the gardens, and 

 through the greenhouses, where I saw a number of interesting 

 plants. The collection of orchids numbers about 3,000 speci- 

 mens, but, unfortunately, few of them were in bloom at the time. 

 A hurried glance at the Australian Museum, under the guidance 

 of Mr. A. J. North, showed how greatly the collections had 

 advanced both in size and arrangement since my last visit in 1887, 

 In an interesting paper read before this club some years ago, 

 Mr. C. A. Topp, F.L.S. {Victorian Naturalist, v., p. 63.), spoke of 

 Ourimba, on the Northern line, about 56 miles from Sydney, as 

 an excellent place to get an idea of bush country almost tropical 

 in character. My time would only permit me to go as far as 

 Gosford, a few miles south of Ourimba, and then I had to do my 

 botanizing from the railway carriage windows, but I saw quite 

 enough to repay me for my trip ; and from a purely sight-seeing 

 point of view the trip is well worth taking, as one can leave 

 Sydney at 9 a.m. and be back again at i p.m., with charming 

 scenery all the way — in fact, no similar distance in Victoria can 

 at all compare with the fifty miles between Sydney and Gosford. 

 It was rather early for wild flowers, but as we approached the 

 Hawkesbury the rocky sides of the cuttings were decked here and 

 there with patches of white, yellow, and pink, showing that there 

 was something to be picked if one only had the opportunity. 

 After crossing the famous bridge the line winds along the side 



