Vol. XVII. 

 1917 



1 Macgillivray, Ornithologists in North Queensland: 73 



berries covering it. Many of the deciduous trees were now 

 coming into leaf or flower. Some of tliese lose their leaves early, 

 and remain quiescent during the dry season ; others retain their 

 leaves until the commencement of the rainy season, and shed 

 them immediately before regaining the new dress. One of these, 

 growing occasionally along the banks or on the edges of the scrub, 

 has leaves which turn to a brilliant scarlet before falling, and do 

 this just as the tree is bursting into flower. We landed and found 

 a nest of the Boat-billed Flycatcher in a bushy scrub tree. We 

 shot a grizzly flying-fox with a young one clinging to it ; then a 

 Scrub-Turkey and several Nutmeg-Pigeons for the pot. We 

 came upon a small creek in the scrub, and noted where a large 

 crocodile had recently crossed a small isthmus separating one 

 water-hole from another. 



After lunch M'Lennan and I followed the two blacks, who had 

 borrowed an axe to cut out two " sugar bags," otherwise native 

 bee nests. The first was about 20 feet up in a living tree, and 

 contained a good lot of bees but only a small amount of honey. 

 The second was high up in a dry tree which took quite a long time 

 to fell. When this was done we found it to contain quite a lot 

 of honey, old and new wax-comb, bee bread, and new cells. We 

 ate some, and brought about a quart home ; it is very sweet and 

 sickly. After we had taken our share from the tree the two blacks 

 had a competition to see who would get most of what remained. 

 They would cram their mouths full of wax, honey, and bees till 

 they were too full to masticate. The honey was trickling down 

 their chins and over their chests, and bees crawling about their 

 mouths. It is necessary to explain that these bees do not sting. 

 Near here we found a fine new bower of Chlamydera cerviniventris. 



On the loth we prepared to leave for Lloyd's Island in order 

 to catch the steamer south. The cutter had come up for us, and 

 we first went out and shifted the nearer of the two bowers of C. 

 cerviniventris ; this we did quite easily, as the floor was firmly 

 woven together, and we placed it on a fiat sheet of bark and put 

 it on the deck of the cutter with the rest of our baggage, and 

 made Lloyd's Island late in the evening. Next day we explored 

 the mangroves, then the island behind them. A track ran along 

 here, with two beautiful pools of fresh water beside it. It was 

 here that we got the Finch Erythrura trichroa. 



On the afternoon of the 12th we started for Restoration Island, 

 where it had been arranged that we should be picked up by the 

 s.s. Suva at 9 next morning. However, a mistake had been made, 

 and we woke in the morning to find the Suva steaming away 

 south. No other boat calls for a month, so we made our way 

 back to Lloyd's Island and made up our minds for another stay 

 on the mainland. We left our heavier luggage at the island, and 

 sailed for the mouth of the river. The wind dropped, and we 

 anchored off the shore for the night, and made the mouth of the 

 river next morning ; but the wind was so light that we had to 

 take to the dinghys again and row up to the sandalwood landing, 



