^°iQio^'] Macgillivrav, Along the Great Barrier Reef. 227 



is, would well repay a more leisured examination, as it is crowded 

 with interest for the ornithologist. 



No Tropic-Bird is seen on the island or anywhere during our 

 trip. Leaving the island, we have our bird escort for some dis- 

 tance, during which time we witness a spirited course. A 

 flying-fish rises out of the water on iridescent wings, going past 

 our boat. A Brown Gannet is soon in full pursuit, but with 

 all its exertion the bira cannot gain an inch on the fish over 

 a distance of about 500 yards, when the fish seeks safety in his 

 watery domain. 



OTHER ISLANDS. 



We spend another night behind the reef, and get away with the 

 trade wind this tim.e in our favour, and do not take long to return 

 past the Sir Charles Hardy Islands, turning northward past Cape 

 Grenville and the Cockburn Reef to the Bird Islands, where ex- 

 pectations formed from the name are not to be realised. We 

 anchor at a small shelly beach on the northernmost islet, and go 

 ashore at the identical spot where, many years ago. Huxley the 

 surgeon and John Macgillivray the naturalist landed from the 

 Rattlesnake. They found some starving blacks on this point : 

 we find only their tracks. There are large trees on the island 

 covered with green and ripe bean-like pods — the ripe ones with 

 bright scarlet seeds in them. These trees serve as a roosting- 

 place for many Nutmeg-Pigeons. The only other land-bird is 

 the small Honey-eater Ptilotis analoga. Reef-Herons are on the 

 coral at low water, and many Curlews and Whimbrels. and Sand- 

 pipers and Barred-rumped Godwits on the shores of the central 

 lagoon, the whole group of islands forming the rim of an atoll. 



A favouring wind takes us next day past Boydong Cay, 

 Cairncross Island, near Tern Island, where a rocky shore and 

 a heavy sea make landing impossible, so we run for shelter 

 into the Escape River — a large inlet, blocked at its mouth by 

 a large wooded island, and having a north and south passage in. 

 We anchor at the back of the island, where there is an old hut, 

 overshadowed by several bushy trees bearing an abundance of 

 large fruit of the colour and si^e of a pomegranate, and of a 

 pleasantly acid taste, with a single large stone. We learn later 

 to appreciate them when tramping through the hot northern 

 scrubs. 



Dr. Dobbyn and I set out to explore part of the island. The 

 grass is long, coarse, and luxuriant, and the scrub thick in some 

 parts and open in others. Our first find is the beautifully- 

 constructed nest of the little Sun-Biro {Cinnyris jrenata) hanging 

 from a single dry twig not 3 feet from the ground. It is ex- 

 ternally composed of cobwebs, small twigs, ana gi^ass, and lined 

 with the silky wild kapok — a common tree on the Peninsula. 

 Out in more open scnib, and we flush a Black Butcher-Bird 

 (Cradicus quoyi) from her nest about 15 feet up in an acacia. 

 This nest contains four eggs, the usual clutch. The bird is a very 



