THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 1 57; 



quick for us, and escaped into some long grass. Several belts of 

 Brigalow and Rosewood scrub were passed through. The wood 

 of these trees is very hard ; the natives use the latter for making 

 their weapons of, and on many of the trees marks could be seen 

 where they had cut out boomerangs, &c. 



We arrived at Rockhampton in the afternoon, and next day, 

 as the steamer was not leaving till the evening, we took a long 

 walk through the dry hot scrub on the other side of the river. 

 We caught and killed a Brown Tree Snake {Dipsas fusca), and 

 found several chrysalides of butterflies, but they all had 

 ichneumon grubs in, which when hatched had more the appear- 

 ance of a small bee than an ichneumon. The little Peaceful 

 Doves were fairly plentiful, but their nests were difficult to find. 



A large flock of Magpie Geese also flew over us during the day, 

 and we were told that they were very numerous in the waterholes 

 and rivers not far from the town. We camped for lunch on a 

 staging erected over a well, and were amused watching the antics 

 of a Dollar Bird, which evidently had its nest in our neighbour- 

 hood. It kept up an incessant chatter, and went first into one 

 hole then into another in the gum trees near us, but carefully 

 abstained from going into the one where its eggs or young ones 

 were; going into one hole it disturbed a Sacred Kingfisher, 

 which came out in a hurry. Below us, on a small Casuarina bush, 

 we espied a Brown Tree Snake, lying along the topmost branches, 

 apparently asleep, but a Laughing Jackass alighted on a tree close 

 by and uttered its curious note. The snake heard it too, and 

 raising its head took a firmer hold of the branch, and remained in 

 that position until the bird flew away, which it did about twenty 

 minutes afttrwards, making for an old dead gum tree, and struck 

 a Lace Lizard which was lying on the branch and nearly knocked 

 it off. We dislodged the snake by throwing sticks at it, when it 

 took refuge in a clump of grass near the water's edge, wherewe 

 left it undisturbed. On starting back to the town we passed by 

 a small swamp, and several pairs of Grallinse were nesting in the 

 Melaleuca trees. When near the banks of the river we saw an 

 empty nest of the Whistling Eagle ; the young had evidently 

 flown. This bird was plentiful along the coast, and those not 

 disturbed soon get tame. We got back at 5 o'clock, and then 

 went on board the small steamer which was to convey us down 

 the river to the larger one. A few waterfowl showed themselves 

 on the banks and mud flats as we passed along. We were in- 

 formed by the person in charge of the Quarantine Island, near 

 the mouth of the river, that on the island there are two kinds of 

 Wallabies, besides snakes, lizards, Talegallas, Curlews, and other 

 birds, although the island was very small, and separated from the 

 mainland by a channel about half-a-mile wide. He was greatly 

 troubled by Carpet Snakes destroying his chickens at night, as 



