112 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 
the puny insignificant thing you see dowu south, but a real giant of 
the forest with wide spreading branches, giving shade to all around 
These are only a few of the trees to be found there, others there 
were, whose names I could not learn, and then growing over and 
among them were vines and creepers inabundance. The foliage too 
is quite different to what we have been accustomed to. You see 
there no dark green leayes, like those of our Enucalypti, the 
prevailing colour is a very light green, which I must say looks much 
more cheerful. 
Along this ridge we soon went with our guns, and were not long 
in securing specimens, snch as a Masked Barn Owl, Strix personata, 
an Ibis, Threskiornis strictipennis, and several Barred Shouldered 
and little Zebra Doves, Geopelia humeralis and Geopelia tranguilla. 
The similarity between these Doves is very striking, the one really 
seems a smaller edition of the other, they are marked the same, 
and so faras I could learn their habitsare precisely similar. Their notes 
are different, however, that of the Barred Shouldered resembling a 
Cuckoo, in fact it is called the Cuckoo Pigeon in Queensland; while 
the other has a harsh, guttural note, rather loud for the size of the 
bird. ‘hey are nice little things: I was very fond of watching them 
strutting abott in the grass, picking up the seeds, and I think a 
good many escaped on that account. 
During that and the following week, we worked around our 
locality with varying success: we had a little rough weather which 
drove the birds back for shelter, but still wedid very well on the 
whole. Amongst others we secured the Dronga Shrike, Deurus 
bracteatus, a glossy Blackbird, with red eyes, and a fan-shaped tail, 
two varieties of the Kingfisher, J/acleay’s, and the Rufous-backed, 
Halcyon Macleayi and Halycon Pyrrhopygia, the W hite-backed 
Wood Swallow, Artamus Leucopygialis, a very pretty bird, and alsoa 
smaller variety of the same, whichis about half the size and a 
perfect fac-simile of the other, its correct name I have not yet 
been able to ascertain. 
‘There are a good many birds in this district that are obtainable 
in Victoria, for instance the Musk Lorikeet, Zrichoglossus 
concinnus, the Little Lorikeet, Z7richoglossus pusillus, Swainson’s 
Lorikeet, Zi ichoglossus Swainson, and the Friar Bird, Zropzdor- 
hynchus corniculatus, were also very plentiful. We also secured a 
Bustard, Otis Australastanus, and a Southern Stone Plover, 
Oedicnemus grallarius, which were exactly similar to their Southern 
brethren. 
After a week or so on the banks of Alligator Creek, we concluded 
it would be a good idea to try a trip on the water, so obtaining a 
boat from the schooner “‘ Carrambeenie,” which was loading cargo 
at the works. we started off one morning up the creek. It is a fine 
sheet of water, about a hundred and twenty yards wide at this part, 
