Mar., 

 1Q15 



1 Kershaw, A Naturalist in Northern Queensland. 171 



every particle of flesh, leaving the completely cleaned skeleton. 

 In fact, we made use of these scavengers, and secured several 

 perfect skeletons in this manner. It was impossible to leave 

 a bird or mammal exposed even for a few minutes, otherwise 

 it would be rendered useless as a specimen, and even while 

 actually skinning the bird we had to keep removing these 

 creatures. Not far from our camp I found the same species, 

 clustered together in one great mass of some hundreds, sheltering 

 in a slight depression on the trunk of a gum-tree. A burying 

 beetle, Onthophagus laminatiis, Macl., was also very numerous, 

 and was similarly attracted by the light. In a pit we had 

 made for camp refuse they were observed during the daytime 

 forming round balls of earth and decaying matter, about half 

 an inch in diameter, in which they deposit their eggs, and 

 rolling them away for burying in the surrounding soil. Some- 

 times they would push them along by their head or forelegs, 

 at others they rolled them behind them, using their hind feet. 



The weather was now exceedingly hot and muggy, the 

 perspiration running off us with the least exertion, and keeping 

 our clothes constantly wet through. My body, legs, and feet 

 were covered with a large red rash, making the soles of my feet 

 exceedingly tender and painful, and our shoulders, arms, legs, 

 and ankles were badly blistered, chiefly through the bites of 

 mosquitoes. Although the latter were bad enough, a small 

 biting Tabanus fly had recently appeared which was even more 

 troublesome. No sooner did this fly settle than it began 

 operations. They covered our clothes in dozens, settling on 

 our necks, faces, and hands — even getting under our coats — 

 and it was quite impossible to keep still for a moment. To 

 make matters worse, we had a great swarm of termites, myiiads 

 of these winged creatures entering our tents and covering 

 everything. While engaged in skinning some birds they 

 dropped into the arsenic, plaster of paris, all over the bird, 

 in my hair, and down my back, until they nearly drove me 

 distracted. As they settled they immediately cast their wings, 

 which, on the following morning, covered everything on the table. 



Almost every day we had a violent thunderstorm, accom- 

 panied by vivid lightning, sometimes up to two inches of rain 

 falling in a short time. To the ist January over ij inches 

 had been registered. During these storms the interior of the 

 scrub became so dark that it was almost impossible to continue 

 our searches. We had arranged to leave here early in January 

 on our homeward trip, but the flooded state of the river, 

 w^hich was now overflowing its banks in many places, rendered 

 it unsafe to launch our boat, while it was impossible for any 

 boat to come up the river. We therefore continued our work 

 on the mainland, and, notwithstanding the heavy rains, made 



