298 BOUNDARY OP ORGANIC REGIONS. 



mass of the woods are arid, hot, and dusty, the 

 leaves not only small, but dry and brittle, and the 

 marks of frequent fires every where apparent in cal- 

 cined rocks and blackened stems and fallen trunks. 

 On the islands of the northern side of Torres 

 Strait, not a gum-tree is to be seen, the woods 

 are close, lofty, and afford the deepest and most 

 refreshing shade, often matted into impenetrable 

 thickets, by creepers and undergrowth, but adorned 

 with varied foliage, with the cocoa-nut, the plan- 

 tain, the bamboo, and other plants, not only beau- 

 tiful, but useful to man. On the New Guinea 

 coast the vegetation is of the rankest and most 

 luxuriant character, even for the tropics. One vast 

 dank jungle spreads over its muddy shores, abound- 

 ing in immense forest trees, whose trunks are hidden 

 by groves of sago-palms, and myriads of other heat 

 and moisture-loving plants. 



In the animal kingdom I was struck with the dif- 

 ference in the general aspect and character of the 

 shells and echinodermata collected about Cape York 

 and those got near Erroob. The corals and coral 

 reefs were, of course, much the same, as were the 

 tridacna, hippopus, and other reef-burrowing or 

 coral-inhabiting animals. But of those that live on 

 rocks or sand-fiats, we have at Cape York only dark 

 coloured turbo, trochus, turritella, strombus, &c, 

 while at Erroob we got bright-coloured olivas, mitres, 

 and others. Instead of the dull cerithium, we got 

 the splendid terebra maculata and allied forms. 



