EARLY HISTORY 27 



two birds, one a new and handsome fly-catcher {Monarcha 

 leucotis), the other a swallow, which Mr Goold informs me 

 is also an Indian species. Great numbers of butterflies 

 frequent the neighbourhood of the watering-place ; one of 

 these {Papilio Urvillianus) is of great size, and splendour, 

 with dark purple wings, broadly margined with ultra- 

 marine, but from its habit of flying high among the trees 

 I did not succeed in catching one. An enormous spider, 

 beautifully variegated with black and gold, is plentiful in 

 the woods, watching for its prey in the centre of a large 

 net stretched horizontally between the trees. The seine 

 was frequently hauled upon the beach with great success. 

 One evening through its means, in addition to plenty of 

 fish, no less than five kinds of star-fishes and twelve of 

 Crustacea, several of which are quite new, were brought 

 ashore. Among the plants of the island the most important 

 is a wild species of plantain or banana, afterwards found to 

 range along the north-east coast and its islands, as far as 

 Cape York. Here I saw for the first time a species of 

 Sciadophyllum {Brassaia actinophylla, the umbrella-tree) 

 one of the most singular trees of the eastern coast-line of 

 tropical Australia ; a slender stem, about thirty feet in 

 height, gives off a few branches with immense digitate dark 

 and glossy leaves, and long spike-like racemes of small 

 scarlet flowers, a great resort for insects and insect-feeding 

 birds. Soon after the ship had come to an anchor, some 

 of the natives came off in their canoes and paid us a visit, 

 bringing with them a quantity of shell-fish {Sanguinolarta 

 rugosd), which they eagerly exchanged for biscuit. For a 

 few days afterwards we occasionally met them on the 

 beach, but at length they disappeared altogether, in conse- 

 quence of having been fired at with shot by one of two 

 ' young gentlemen ' of the Bramble on a shooting excursion, 

 whom they wished to prevent approaching too closely a 

 small village where they had their wives and children. 

 Immediate steps were taken in consequence to prevent the 

 recurrence of such collisions when thoughtless curiosity on 

 one side is apt to be promptly resented on the other if 



