ACCIDENTAL SPECIES 251 



birds in the Swan ^ River district, and near Rockhampton, 

 Queensland. It is more common about the Rockingham 

 Bay district ; but as I have never succeeded in finding its 

 nest, it is probably only a bird of passage on our continent. 

 A careful observer in this, as in any other country, will 

 find that many species occur accidentally; and I may 

 record that I succeeded in collecting forty-three species that 

 are more or less common in India and Southern Asia, but 

 have never been known to breed in Australia, or visit 

 that country in large numbers ; eight that are considered to 

 be exclusively New Zealand species ; fifteen from the islands 

 of the Indian Archipelago ; four from China ; and six only 

 from the island of New Guinea. Besides these I have 

 found at least twenty cosmopolitan species. A few of these 

 birds have been known to nest in various parts of the 

 continent. 



On the 4th the weather was so excessively hot that I 

 was unable to travel between eleven forenoon and four 

 o'clock in the afternoon. Having no instruments with me, 

 I was unable to register the exact degree of heat ; but 

 that it was unusually great seemed to be shown by the 

 extraordinary stagnation of animal life on the plain. The 

 birds all ceased to fly ; and, I suppose, hid away in the 

 groves and beds of reeds. Kangaroos and wallabies crept 

 under the thickest bushes, and where they could be seen, 

 lay quiet, like dead animals, without indulging in any of 

 their usual playful gambols. No living creature was 

 moving about except insects. The gnats, which nightly 

 had been an intolerable pest, cruelly torturing both myself 

 and the horse, had disappeared ; but in their place an 

 army of tiny black sand-flies, showed that numbers make 

 a " weak folk " formidable indeed. In addition to these, 

 several kinds of flies not previously noticed suddenly made 

 their appearance, amongst them a terrible species of 

 horse-fly, which nearly drove my poor horse frantic. 

 They swarmed upon him in such numbers that after 

 many contortions and writhings and lashings out, he laid 

 down on the ground and fairly rolled in his misery, the 

 flies hovering about him in thousands, until he broke into a 



