THE AUSTRALIAN GREAT BARRIER REEF. 123 



landing on the Cairn Cross, Howick, or other of the numerous coral-islet groups scattered along 

 the steamer route, is the chance of making a bag of the famous Torres Strait pigeons, Myristicivora 

 spilorrlioa, a large white variety, highly esteemed for the table, which, arriving from the north, 

 is distributed from October until the end of March throughout the tree-bearing islets and 

 mainland coast as far south as Keppel Bay. The nests of this pigeon are usually built 

 in the forked-branches of the mangrove and tee trees, that form such extensive thickets 

 along the coast-line, and each contains two white eggs. A novel spectacle to the European 

 traveller landing on these islands may probably be afforded by his first acquaintance with the 

 nests of the Australian jungle fowl or scrub hen, Mcgapodiiis tituinliis. These consist of huge 

 mounds of dead leaves, grass, sticks, mould, and shells, scratched together by the adult birds in a 

 well-shaded and sheltered situation among the Hibiscus or other bushes. The dimensions of the 

 nest-mounds may be as much as twenty feet or more in diameter, and from ten to fifteen high, 

 several pairs of birds commonly joining in their construction. When the mounds are completed, 

 the birds burrow holes in the centre of them and deposit their eggs, which are then left to hatch 

 by the moist heat ingendered by the decaying vegetation. As many as forty or fifty eggs, usually 

 of a brown or brick-red colour, as large as those of a turkey, are sometimes found in the largest 

 mainland nests. The eggs, as well as the parent birds, are excellent eating. An attractively 

 plumaged bird, very plentiful in Cairn Cross and on other of the northern Barrier islets, is the 

 Australian bee-eater, Merops oniafns. Mr. A. R. Wallace, writing of this bird in his " Malay 

 Archipelago," says : — 



"This elegant little bird sits on twigs in open places, gazing eagerly around, and darting 

 off at intervals to seize some insect which it sees flying near, returning afterwards to the same 

 twig to swallow it. Its long, sharp, curved bill, the two long narrow feathers in its tail, its 

 beautiful green plumage, varied with rich brown and black, and vivid blue on the throat, 

 render it one of the most graceful and interesting objects a naturalist can see for the first 

 time." 



With Cape York, situated in lat. 10° 40" S., Queensland and the Australian Continent 



reaches its most northern limit. The outer edge of the Barrier, although now much 



more irregular and disjointed, together with the extensive reefs of its interior system, are continued 



considerably farther. The last link in the chain of reefs that forms the outer wall of the Barrier, 



and that has now been followed for over twelve hundred miles, is located on the south side of 



Flinders' Entrance, in latitude 9° 40" S. The centrally-developed, widely-expanding Warrior 



reef, which, with the single break of Moon Passage, is thirty-five miles long, reaches to within 



ten miles of the New Guinea coast, in lat. 9° 15 ". The important Torres Strait group of islands, 



mostly of considerable elevation, and identical in their rock-composition with the strata of Cape 



York peninsula, constitute practically the western boundary of the Great Barrier area in this 



region, in the same manner as the mainland coast represents its limits farther south. The 



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