THE COUNTRY. 189 



of Cape York, is the occurrence of a palm, not 

 hitherto mentioned as Australian. It is the Caryota 

 urens (found also in India and the Indian archi- 

 pelag'o), one of the noblest of the family^ combining 

 the foliage of the tree-fern with a trunk a foot in 

 diameter, and sixty in height. It is found in the 

 dense brushes along with three other palms, 

 Seqforthia, Corypha, and Calamus. Another ver}^ 

 striking tree, not found elsewhere by us, is the fine 

 Wormia alata, abundant on the margin of the 

 brushes, where it is very conspicuous from its large 

 yellow blossoms, handsome dark-green fohage, and 

 ragged, papery bark of a red colour. 



One day I explored some caves in the sandstone 

 cliffs at Port Albany in quest of bats, and was 

 fortunate enough to get quite a new JRhinolophus or 

 horse-shoe bat. In one of the caves, which only 

 admitted of entry on the hands and knees, these 

 bats were so numerous, and in such large clusters, 

 that I secured no less than eleven at one time, by 

 using both hands. Small kangaroos appeared to 

 be plentiful enough, but we were not so fortunate as 

 to shoot one. The natives one day brought down to 

 us a live opossum, quite tame, and very gentle ; this 

 turned out to be new, and has since been described 

 by Mr. Gould under the name of Pseudocheirus 

 nudicaudatus. 



In the brushes the sportsman may find the mega- 

 podius, brush-turkey, and white pigeon, and in the 

 forest flocks of white cockatoos, and various parrots 



VOL. I. K 



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