140 COLLECTOR'S RAMBLES 



interesting collections. There was a dark, tangled 

 wood, or scrub, not more than a mile from the town, in 

 which I daily spent several hours in collecting speci- 

 mens. Father and I would start out in the morning, 

 he with a bag and small pick, and I with gun, net, and 

 collecting-box. We sometimes took all the specimens 

 we could carry back. 



One day I came across a large number of flying 

 foxes (Pteropus, as the large, fruit-eating bats are 

 called), which were hanging in hundreds on the 

 branches of the trees. They are of a reddish color, 

 and their heads have a very foxy look. They were 

 very tenacious of life, and I fired several shots among 

 them before I brought down a specimen. Great quan- 

 tities of fruit are destroyed by them, therefore they 

 are much persecuted by the inhabitants, who, when 

 they find a colony, knock them down with long poles, 

 and destroy them by thousands. 



At this place I found the pitta (Pitta strepitans), a 

 beautifully colored ground-thrush. He runs about on 

 the ground, stopping frequently, as our robin does, and 

 picks up a living of insects and small snails. The 

 regent-bird {Sericulus melinus) is found in the forest 

 near Maryborough. I never saw but one alive, and he 

 was a long distance off, in the top of a high tree. 

 Even at that distance his shiny black and golden- 

 yellow plumage glistened distinctly in the sunlight. 

 Blue mountain parrots, ablaze with color ; glossy green 



