

J 



ITHE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM 



MAGAZINE 





IP 



Published by the Australian Museum 

 Editor: C. Andersox. M.A.. D.Sc. 



- College Street^ Sydney. 

 Annual Subseription, Post Free, 4/4. 



VOL. 1. No. 2. 



AUOl'ST. 1!)21, 



Lord Howe Island -A Naturalist's Paradise. 



Bv Allan R. McCulloch. 



If you were to sail straight out east- 

 wfa-d from Fort Macquarie, New South 

 Wales, for three hundred miles, you 

 would come to two great hills rising out 

 of the ocean depths, with just a little 

 lower lying land around their bases. 

 But should you be blown out of your 

 course and pass either to the north or 

 south of them, you might then double 

 backward and forward over many thou- 

 sands of miles in the Tasman Sea with- 

 out encountering any other land. Lord 

 Howe Island, only seven miles long, is 

 just a tiny scrap in a huge ocean waste. 

 But what a wonderful scrap! Covered 

 with a luxuriant vegetation, which in- 

 cludes many remarkal)le plants found no- 

 where else in the world, its liigh and 

 precipitous hills afford scenery as 

 unique as it is ])eautiful. The presence 

 of a coral reef and its enclosed lagoon 

 provides additional features usually re- 

 stricted to tropical climates. 



"an island of dreams. ' 

 Dreams of sunlight, palms and open 

 spaces, and also of freedom from the 

 cares of this troublous world. And yet, 

 for those whose tastes run to more sub- 

 stantial things, likewise an island of fas- 

 cinating interest. There are delightful 

 homes with gardens, and charming peo- 

 ple, and all those things which go to 

 make civilisation worth while. With all 

 the enthralling freedom of unsullied 



nature one may combine the good 

 things we demand of more populous 

 places- — an ideal, evanescent, and fast 

 becoming submerged by the strenuous 

 progress of the times. 



Its hills ris3 high upon the horizon 

 like two blue clouds as one approaches 

 from the wide encircling ocean. The 

 deep waters so completely isolate it from 

 the rest of the world that even the sea- 

 roaming natives of the Pacific islands, 

 wdio wandered far and wide in their frail 

 canoes, failed to discover it. It is true 

 that a few bleached bones occasionally 

 obtrude from the sands whicli have cov- 

 ered them, but these are of compara- 

 tively recent burial, and perhaps tell o^ 

 some member of a whaler's crew or other 

 seafaring man whose history has been 

 forgotten. 



When Lieutenant Lidgbird Ball dis- 

 covered Lord Howe Island in 1788 he 

 found it quite uninhabited by man, while 

 its bird populaticn was so ignorant of 

 the murderous ways of humans that all 

 its members, large and small, wandered 

 up to observe what strange intruders 

 had come to disturb their seclusion. 

 They knew not what fear meant, iiavins- 

 had no enemies other than of their own 

 kind, for there were neither mammals 

 nor reptiles to prey upon them, and 

 tlieir curiosity led them to approach 

 within arm's length. There were lots 

 of them, too, white birds with scarlet 



