146 



POSSESSION ISLANDS. 



fertile and cultivatable spots. They are by no 

 means deficient in beauty, being of varied and 

 undulating surface, with lofty peaks and ridges, and 

 sheltered valleys, but they seem to be mostly desti- 

 tute of water, except in the rainy season ; and their 

 inhabitants are few and scattered. We had one or 

 two interviews with them while surveying Endeavour 

 Strait in the Bramble, and they were always peace- 

 able and well disposed, and appeared to have com- 

 municated with Europeans before. 



On one of the smallest of the Possession Islands 

 Mr. Macgillivray shot a brace of those curious birds, 

 the Megapodius tumulus of Gould, and we ex- 

 amined one or two of their mounds. One of them 

 we opened, and are thus able to corroborate the 

 singular account given by Mr. Gilbert,* in Gould's 

 Birds of Australia. 



There were two large mounds just inside a narrow 

 belt of mangroves, at the back of the beach. The 

 largest was apparently an old one. Its figure was 

 an irregular truncated cone on an oblong base, w r hich 

 measured 150 feet in circumference. The slope of 

 its sides measured from eighteen to twenty-four feet, 

 its perpendicular height being ten or twelve feet. 

 On the top was a slight hollow, and it rested on 



* 1 cannot mention the name of this gentleman without saying 

 how much I, in common with all who knew him, regretted his 

 unfortunate death. About this time (August, 1844) he set out 

 with Dr. Leichardt from Sydney, and was killed by the natives 

 on the borders of the Gulf of Carpentaria. 



