1884.] DISCOVERED IN QUEENSLAND. 40/ 



and climbing plants spread tliemselves OTer the ground. Soon we 

 come to a hilly and broken country, where the ground is more 

 fertile ; and here the vegetation is so dense that a man can only with 

 the greatest difficulty work himself through it, torn to pieces by the 

 so-called "lawyer palms" and stungby the nettles(Lfl/)o/-^ea moroides). 

 The very troul)lpsome " lawyer palms " are predominant in these 

 mountainous scrubs, sometimes by their coils absolutely stopping the 

 passage. Rut the variety of trees and plants otherwise is also very 

 great. Those which near the top are most conspicuous by their 

 beauty are the tree-ferns, that spread their magnificent fronds over 

 the rivulets. Further down are bananas abundant, together with 

 various kinds of palms. After passing across the summit of this 

 range, one finds oneself again in a forest country, the eastern tongues 

 of Leichhardt's great basaltic tableland. At the commencement of 

 this tableland there are still low hills and valle3'S covered with some- 

 what similar scrubs, but they are not so dense, because the " lawyer 

 palms" are rarer here. 



The country I explored in the ten months I spent near Herbert 

 River stretches from the lower Herbert, containing the (low) ridges 

 on both sides of the river ; but principally that hilly land between 

 the Herbert Iliver and Cardwell, from Herbert Vale northwards 

 about 6 miles above Herbert-River waterfall. None of the new 

 mammals go south of Dalrymple gap. Phalangista lemuro'uhs and 

 Dendrolagus lumholtzi are not found in the range south of Herbert 

 River (sea-view range) ; and it is also very doubtful whether 

 Phalangista archeri and P. herbertensis are to be found there. 



1. P. archeri, called by the blacks Toollah (siqjru, p. 381), is not 

 uncommon in the upper part of these mountainous scrubs. It 

 seems to be more commonly distributed than P. herbertensis and 

 P. lemuroides, though it never goes far down the mountains. 

 Besides being, like the Phalangers, a night animal, it is in activity a 

 great part of the day, as I have seen myself. The blacks kill it by 

 climbing up the tree and throwing sticks at it, which often is very 

 troublesome work. The animal is not ver)'- shy, but, when dis- 

 turbed, it runs away quickly from tree to tree, so that a black man 

 will sometimes have difficulty in killing it, if he has not got two or 

 three ot his comrades to meet it in different trees. 



Phalangista archeri is the principal prey of Dasyurus maculatus, 

 which is plentiful in the same country. 



2. Phalangista herbertensis {supra, p. 3S3), called by the blacks 

 Mongan, is only found on the very higliest tops of the ranges. 



3. Phalangista lemuroides (supra, p. 38.i), called by the blacks 

 Yabby, is not found in that part of the range that lies east of Gowry 

 Creek. It makes its appearance first at the spur of mountains 

 between Gowry Creek and Herbert River, and is pretty plentiful 

 from there northwards. I shot the only two specimens I got in one 

 of the tableland scrubs. It is killed by the blacks in the same way 

 as P. archeri. 



4. Dendrolagus lumholtzi (supra, p. 387), called by the blacks 



