Mar.,"! Kershaw, A Naiunilisi in Norihevn Queensland. i6o 



i()i4 J ' X, ^ 



Soon after entering the river darkness came on, and, as the 

 tide was running out, our progress became so slow that we 

 decided to go on in the cUngey, and land two or three miles below 

 our camp. After a long and weary pull, during which two or 

 three crocodiles splashed close to our boat, we got ashore about 

 midnight, and started at once for our camp. The night was 

 very dark, and, after scrambling about through the scrub and 

 getting a fair supply of green ants over us, and stumbhng over 

 logs for about half an hour, we had to confess that we were 

 hopelessly bushed, and decided to camp where we were until 

 daylight. Lying on the ground and tormented with myriads 

 of starving mosquitos, we waited for daylight, for sleep was 

 out of the question. With the first streak of dawn we were 

 off again, and, after a long tramp, reached camp about 8 o'clock, 

 tired and hungry, having fasted since 3 o'clock on the previous 

 day. A bath and a meal, however, soon freshened us up, and, 

 packing our baggage off down the river, we walked back to where 

 we had left the cutter, and started off again for Lloyd Island, 

 and thence on the lugger Keith for a long trip to Raine Island, 

 situated outside the Barrier Reef, north-east of Cape Grenville. 

 This trip occupied three weeks, during which we visited a 

 number of islands both within and outside the Great Barrier. 

 We reached Lloyd Island again on our return late at night on 

 the 17th December. 



The next morning we again had an excellent opportunity of 

 witnessing the great flights of Pigeons, Starlings, and Parrots, 

 but this time leaving the island for their feeding-grounds on 

 the mainland. The Parrots are always the first to leave, then 

 the Starlings, followed by the Pigeons. One mass of Starlings 

 must have included some thousands of birds, and their extra- 

 ordinary habit, already described, of bunching up into 

 great black masses and then drawing out into long, sinuous 

 lines and circling to and fro, was again repeated. 



Transferring our belongings to a cutter, the Leichard, we 

 left again for the Claudie River camp. The cutter could only 

 run up the river a short distance, as the tall mangroves on either 

 bank shut out what httle wind there was, so we had to pack 

 our baggage into two dingeys manned by two blackboys and row 

 all the distance to our camp landing. Among the birds seen 

 while passing up the river were White Ibis, Black-and- White 

 Cormorant, Little Whimbrel, Common Sandpiper, Red- 

 shouldered Parrot, Scrub-Fowl, Palm Cockatoo, Bee-eaters, &c. 

 We were soon settled down again, and resumed our excursions 

 in the scrub and forest. The rainy season set in just before 

 Christmas, and after the first few days scarcely a day passed 

 without one or more violent tropical downpours, accompanied 

 with deafening thunder and vivid lightning. At times these 



