July 28, 1892] 



NATURE 



309 



tempted, but with not very great success, to photograph some 

 blacks. One especially, named Frank, had his back scored with 

 cicatrices in regular pattern. I spent the evening till 1 1 o'clock 

 with Dr. Siemen, and said good-bye to him, wishing sincerely 

 that he might be successful in his endeavours to secure what we 

 \\ ere both in search of, and what it was perfectly evident that I 

 myself could not obtain. 



I may here say that Dr. Siemen had with him the best of the 

 blacks who were with Mr. Caldwell, and who secured for the 

 latter the eggs of Ceratodus. These blacks were fine and 

 powerfully-built fellows ; but here, as everywhere else, lum and 

 disease are rapidly lessening their numbers. 



On the way back our dogs started many big lizards, and it was 

 amusing to see one of them hanging on to the tail of a large 

 Cychdiis gigas, whose head and body were hidden in the hollow 

 of a log. Jew lizards we met, as well as species of Hinulia and 

 Liolepisma. We camped by the Burnett, some twenty miles 

 out of Gayndah, and spent the evening fishing in a little back- 

 water. There are two kinds of turtle in the river, the long- 

 necked {Chelodina longicollis) and the short-necked (Cheiymis 

 macijtiariensis), and sometimes one is surprised at pulling out a 

 turtle instead of a fish. Next day we made our way back into 

 < iayndah, passing by large patches of grass trees in full flower, 

 with swarms of the little black native bees hovering around them. 

 Just as we were passing through a mob of travelling cattle our 

 dogs started two kangaroo rats {Beitongia, sp.). There was a 

 general scattering as the little animals, with the dogs in full 

 cha-ie, ran through the mob. After a short run one was caught, 

 which had in its pouch a single small young one not more than 

 i\ inch long. 



I stayed a few days in Gayndah, hoping to make a collection 

 of earthworms, which up till then there had been very little 

 chance of collecting. The name of the township will be well 

 known to Australian etymologists, since it was here that Mr. 

 Masters made a ver}' fine collection ; he was fortunate enough to 

 have almost a year in the district, and thus secured forms at all 

 seasons. About a mile behind the township is a large stretch of 

 scrub, where I spent a considerable time, often accompanied by 

 one or other of my friends — Messrs. Illidge, Cole, and Connelly 

 — to whom I am indebted for help in the laborious task of 

 digging out worms from dry ground. My favourite place was a 

 large patch centering in a big bottle tree, Sterculia qtiadrifida {?). 

 Here was an open space, lightly timbered with small trees of 

 Melia azedarach, the light green foliage of which formed a strong 

 contrast to the sombre foliage of the dense scrub all around. 

 Besides eucalyptus and bottle trees, the scrub was made up of 

 such trees and shrubs as Geijera muelleri and salicifolia, which 

 were covered with small yellowish flowers, Leptospervium lani- 

 gerum, Btirsaria spinosa, Nephelium (sp.), Hovea loitgipes, 

 Solanum stelhgerum, &c. I am indebted to the Baron von 

 Mueller for his kindness in giving me the names of plants, to 

 Mr. C. French for names of Coleoptera, to Mr. A. H. S. 

 Lucas for names of amphibia and lizards. From the open 

 spaces alleys lead away into the recesses of the scrub, and along 

 these numbers of the beautiful Danais enppus, Papilio erec- 

 thetis, and Acrasea (sp.) kept flying to and fro. Of birds, prob- 

 ably because I was not specially on the look-out for them, I 

 saw very few. 



The two most numerous forms of life were ants and millipedes. 

 The moment you put anything which could serve as food for 

 them on the ground, the former appeared as if by magic. 

 Several times they spoilt butterflies just while I put them down 

 on the ground and made a paper bag for them. They always bit 

 off' first the little knob at the end of the antenna. White ants 

 of course abounded, and in the tree trunks were swarms of 

 native bees. There were not as many logs to turn over as could 

 have been wished for, and the ground also was rather too dry 

 and sandy. 



We began by digging around the base of the big bottle tree, 

 and, after digging some time, came across some large worms, 

 about two feet in length. These differ in habit from any others 

 I have collected. The burrow runs down for perhaps two feet, 

 and then opens into a small chamber. The head end of the 

 worm lies usually a short distance up the burrow, whilst the 

 greater part of its length is twisted into a knotted coil, and lies 

 in the chamber which may also contain one or two smaller, im- 

 mature forms, evidently the young of the larger ones. Under 

 and in rotten logs you often meet with a shortish, stout worm, 

 perhaps six or eight inches in length, which, at first sight, differs 

 very much from the long one. Its body is stiff", and the surface 



NO. 1 187, VOL. 46] 



comparatively dry, whilst the other is four or five times its- 

 length, the body soft and the surface always very slimy. The 

 short one I met with all along the Burnett River, at Gympie and 

 in the palm district between this and Brisbane, whilst Mr. D. 

 Le Souef collected it at Toowoomba. It is the Cryptodrilus 

 purpuretts of Michaelsen, and, much though the two differ in 

 habits and appearance, the long one is at most a variety of the 

 short, typical form. I only got it in this one spot. In the 

 scrub were some four new species of the same genus, and three 

 new species of a genus (Didymogaster) of which previously only 

 one species had been described from New South Wales, by Mr. 

 Fletcher. Of the typical Victorian genus, Megascolides, to 

 which our large Gippsland earthworm belongs, I did not find 

 any example in Gayndah, but the Perichaetes were fairly well 

 represented. 



Most of the earthworms were secured under fallen logs and in 

 rotten trunks of the bottle tree. In times of drought the latter 

 are cut down, and, containing a great amount of moisture, are 

 eaten readily by cattle. 



The season was too early for beetles, but amongst others I 

 secured specimens in the family Carabidae of Caremim deauratum 

 and bonelli, Eutoma (sp. ), Philoscaphus mastersti, and Honia- 

 losoma hercules ; and, in the Paussidae, of Arthropterus (sp. ). 

 One species of the genus Leptops, in the Curculionidas, simply 

 swarmed on the bark of the bottle trees and some of the 

 upturned logs in the more open parts were alive with the little 

 red form, Lemodes coccinea. 



A short time before leaving for Queensland I had been struck 

 with the presence of curious laterally-placed segmental openings 

 in a very large millipede from Fiji, which Mr. French had 

 kindly forwarded to me. In the Gayndah scrub — where smaller, 

 but still large, millipedes abounded — I was interested to find the 

 meaning of these openings. Each one is connected with a gland, 

 and, when irritated, the animal passes out a few drops of a most 

 obnoxious fluid, of a red-brown colour, the function of which 

 must be protective. Whilst on this subject, I may mention that 

 one morning, when Mr. Frank Connelly and myself were 

 digging for worms, we accidentally cut in two a cockroach. 

 From between the segments in its back it poured forth a milky 

 white fluid, possessing an odour so execrable and pungent that 

 it drove us from the spot. 



Under logs we found, also, of land planarians, Geoplana 

 ccerulea and variegata, and amongst Vertebrata, the frogs 

 Limnodynastes tasmatiiensis , which was common everywhere, 

 and Hyperolia marmorata. Of lizards, we secured species of 

 Phyllodactylus, Pygopus, Grammatophora, Hinulia, Liolepisma, 

 and Egernia. Snakes were rare, only the genera Morelia, 

 Furina, and Hoplocephalus being represented. Whilst in the 

 scrub I did not see a single marsupial. 



On the road from Biggenden to Gayndah I had been struck 

 with the appearance of two small hillocks capped with 

 basalt. The country all round was thinly wooded with 

 nothing but gum trees, but just the tops of these two hillocks 

 were rich with vegetation, though each was at most fifty 

 yards in width. Dr. Cole, Mr. Illidge, and myself drove out 

 to see if there were anything worth collecting. Unfor- 

 tunately, since I had passed along the country had been 

 fired and everything was as dry and parched as it well 

 could be. However, just the very cap of the hills still 

 formed a strong contrast to the surrounding country, and here 

 we found growing — though nowhere else, apparently, except in 

 these two very limited 2txas— Damara robusta, the Queensland 

 Kauri, Cupania xylocarpa, Micromelum pubescens, Carissa 

 brownii, Citriobattis (sp.), and amongst ferns a rich growth of 

 Polypodium (sp.), and Adriantum {v^.). Animal life was al- 

 most absent. We disturbed three wallabies, but except these 

 and a few millipedes and scorpions and endless ants, there was 

 nothing to be seen. 



My time was passing by rapidly, and though I would much 

 have liked a few more days in the Gayndah scrub, it was a 

 choice between this and two or three days in the palm district 

 between Gympie and Brisbane. Regretfully I left Gayndah, and 

 taking the coach back to Biggenden, found myself in the evening 

 in Maryborough. In the morning I had about two hours to- 

 wander about. Close to the town were camped some blacks. 

 It was curious to note how they had adapted themselves to their 

 environment. They had made their " humpies " out of old 

 sheets of corrugated iron. A semi-clothed native lying down in 

 the shelter of a mia-mia made of English corrugated iron formed 

 as incongruous a mixture as could well be imagined. Early in. 



