AUSTRALIA 217 



the fauna of the district traversed. Cape Riche proved poor 

 also, and he went northward to Perth, where he met James 

 Drummond, the pioneer of West AustraHan botany, formerly of 

 the Botanic Garden at Cork, and the discoverer of Spiranthes 

 Romanzoffiana in the British Islands. At Perth he struck good 

 ground. "This place is an excellent locality for Algae," he 

 writes, " I am daily finding fresh ones, and have the prospect of 

 a good harvest of novelty and interest... The days are too short 

 for my work. My best collections are made at Garden Island, 

 nine miles distant. I have been twice landed for a two hours' 

 walk, and on both occasions collected so much that it took three 

 days to lay them on paper." Rottnest Island also proved highly 

 productive, and he gives a very attractive picture of the great 

 rock-pools on the limestone reefs, filled with brilliant seaweeds, 

 many of them undescribed. Here he lived in the deserted 

 convict establishment, and amassed a large and valuable 

 collection. 



Thence he went to Melbourne, where he collected at several 

 points about Port Phillip, notably on Phillip Island ; after 

 which he sailed for Tasmania, where at Georgetown he had a 

 month's successful work with the Rev. J. Fereday, himself an en- 

 thusiastic student of botany, seaweeds included. Passing through 

 Hobart, he obtained permission to visit Port Arthur, at that 

 time a great convict station, for which he sailed on March i, 

 1855, passing the grand basaltic headlands of Cape Raoul and 

 Cape Pillar. At Port Arthur amid exquisite natural surroundings 

 marred by the presence of chained prisoners, armed warders, 

 and sentry-lines of fierce dogs, he worked successfully, doing 

 much shore-collecting, and dredging with the aid of a crew of 

 convicts and armed guards. After a little rather unsuccessful 

 collecting at Sydney and Newcastle he sailed for New Zealand, 

 where he spent a few weeks at Auckland. While the terrestrial 

 flora proved highly interesting to him, he found the shore poor 

 in Algae; but he enlisted a useful recruit for collecting, in 

 Mr Knight, Auditor-General, who undertook to collect and send 

 him further material. 



The 26th July, 185 1, found him at Tonga Taboo, in the 

 Friendly Islands, revelling in his first glimpse of nature in 



