208 WHITE— A Sketch of the Life of. Samuel White. 



having secured anything. They went off again in the after- 

 noon and returned after dark with only one bird between them 

 and complained most bitterly of the roughness of the place. 

 In his notes under the heading of June 7th, 1880, Samuel 

 White says, "This morning three of us landed on separate 

 islands, I went on No. 1, and. secured five birds, Messrs. 

 Oockerell and Andrews only procured one each off the two' 

 main islands. We returned in the afternoon, and went 

 out again, but got nothing. This is our last day here. We 

 have worked all the islands, and I have secured some good 

 skins for my collection. The Barnard Islands lay in a line off 

 shore in a direction a little N. of E. The middle island is the 

 smallest. All three are very steep on the sides and stony, 

 and covered to the top with small timber of various kinds, 

 including Castanospermum, and other trees with dense under- 

 growth all matted together with vines and "Lawyers." In 

 some places I saw the tree hibiscus with large yellow flowers, 

 cabbage palms pandanus, and some fine specimens of native 

 banana. The leaves of this plant would measure two feet 

 broad, and ten to fifteen feet long. On the South side of No. 

 1 island I found a nice spring of fresh water with a kind of 

 couch grass growing around it, this spring , appeared to me 

 to be permanent. The soil seems to be a clay of a dark red or 

 grey brown, which turns up in small nodules as the .uiega- 

 podes scratch it about. Although all three islands are 

 covered in a dense mass of vegetation, the fauna was meagre, 

 the scrubs were dark and noiseless, with the exception of the 

 occasional call of a megapode, the rifle bird being the only 

 thing that was attractive to me. Of butterflies I only 

 saw two species, and few of those, land shells and beetles I 

 saw none, a few dead marine shells were collected with a few 

 crabs. The Barnard Islands were places I had long wished 

 to see, and my visit has been a successful one, for I have 

 secured some splendid specimens of the rare rifle bird. The 

 master had the men bringing off firewood this afternoon, and 

 w 7 e are ready for a start in the morning. The weather to-day, 

 although cloudy, was free from rain." After \having been at 

 anchor for three days under the small middle island in six 

 fathoms of water over sand mud the yacht was got under 

 weigh again at an early hour on the morning of the 8th with 

 a light wind which soon freshened, and by two p.m. the vessel 

 was between Cape Grafton and Fitzroy Island. One of the 

 collectors, Mr. Andrews, was very unwell from the effects of 

 fatigue and exposure on the Barnard Islands, the work from 



