134 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 
throws out very long feelers covered thickly with strong thorns or 
barbs. You attempt to step back to recover it, and find another 
feeler is holding you firm by the shoulder; you free yourself from 
it only to find others elsewhere; and so you go on, freeing yourself 
and being caught, stumbling over roots and creepers, sometimes 
sinking nearly up to your knees in damp decaying vegetation, your 
clothes torn, and the perspiration streaming from every pore. You 
hear plenty of birds, but the undergrowth is so thick that you cannot 
see them, and of course the noise you make breaking through 
frightens anything that may be in your immediate vicinity. I am 
not describing one patch only, it is the same right through. One 
day we attempted to break through, and it took us two hours to go 
a single mile, which was the width of the scrub in this spot, and we 
were working hard all the time. Scrub is by far too mild a term— 
it is really a dense tropical jungle. 
We had a very rough time of it during our stay at this river, it 
being wet nearly all the time. The birds we got we paid for rather 
dearly. They consisted principally of Fruit Pigeons, which feed 
upon the Quandongs and Palm Seeds, that grow in great abundance 
there, but as the trees grow very high it is difficult to get a shot, 
owing to the thickness of the undergrowth. The Cassowary, 
Casuarius Australis, is also to be found there, but we were unable 
to come across one. We secured during the week specimens of the 
magnificent and Green Fruit Pigeons, Carpophaga magnifica, and 
Chalcophaps chrysochlora, King Parrots, Aprosmictus scapulatus, 
Pigmy Geese, Nettapus pulchellus, Cat Bird, Ptilomorhynchus 
Smith, Shining Calornis, and others. This Calornis sometimes 
called the Shining Starling, Aplonis metallica, isa very handsome 
little bird. They are said to migrate to New Guinea, returning to 
Queensland each breeding season, but of this Iam not certain. I 
know they are to be found there, and also that they are only seen in 
the Queensland scrubs during about three months of the year, so 
that seems to substantiate the theory. They go about in flocks of 
about a hundred, and select a very high tree in the densest part of 
the scrub, which they completely cover with nests composed cf grass, 
palm fibre, ete. Here they are to be found in the mornings and 
evenings, chirping and twittering away to a great extent. During 
the middle of the day they disperse in twos and threes about 
the scrub, searching for fruit, which seems to be their only 
food. We were rather too early to secure their eggs, but even had 
it been the right time of the year, we would have found it very 
difficult, as the only tree we saw their nests in was fully two 
hundred teet high, and without a branch until you get within 
twenty feet of the top. The male and female of these birds are 
so much alike, that you can only distinguish them by dissection. 
The Pigmy Geese I shot ina lagoon, and had to swim for, running 
the risk of alligators which are rather plentiful in this district. 
