^ 123 
the Crescent-marked Oriole, a bird peculiar to the district and New 
Guinea, On the Mulgrave Plains we shot the Plain Turkey and the 
Stone Plover, usually known as the " Gray Forest Curlew." We also 
got the Spur-winged Plover, the Gray Duck, Pigmy Goose, Red Teal^ 
Whistling Duck, Scrub Bail, Swamp Bail, Brown Quail, Spoonbill, 
and Straw-necked Ibis. Our capacious soup-pan, which held 5 gallons, 
usually contained scrub turkeys, scrub hens, pigeons, parrots, cocka^ 
toos, and any other bird except the crow, the heron, and the jackass. 
All else were boiled down promiscuously into a nutritious and savoury- 
extract, flavoured according to Soyerian rules, and distributed in 
pannikins to the assembled guests, who generally eat on the principle 
o£ the man who said he was naturally a very small eater, but found 
that a large meal agreed best with his constitution. 
Among the rest of the birds were Wrens, Bobins, Shrikes, Honeys 
eaters. Thrushes, Kingfishers, Flycatchers, Swifts, Swallows, Owis, 
Hawks, Falcons, and sundry others, all too numerous to have more 
than their names recorded in this article. The best months for the 
collector of birds, insects, reptiles, butterflies, and animals are Decem- 
ber, January, and February ; but he would risk the wet season, and 
no man would care to live in the scrubs of Bellenden-Ker after the 
advent of the tropical rains. 
VIII. 
THE I^LORA OF WOOROONOORAN. 
This is a chapter containing a very brief description of the 
specially interesting section of the Bellenden-Ker ilora, and intended 
for the ordinary reader who either dreads or has no desire for a 
personal orthographical struggle with Mr. Bailey's official reportj 
a struggle in which the reckless gladiator would probably be paralysed 
in the second or third round, even if fully armed with the largest 
time-payment family dictionary and Greek and Latin lexicon. The 
necessity for brevity is seen when the reader learns that on and around 
that one mountain we found considerably over six hundred different 
species of plants fruiting or flowering in the coldest months of the 
year, exclusive of the mosses and lichens, which are not yet classified. 
In his report Mr. Bailey says : — " The results of the expedition, 
from a botanical point of view, have proved highly satisfactory ; about 
thirty fresh plants have been added to the known flora of Australia, 
equalling in number those added to the flora of New Guinea by Sir 
William Macgregor's late expedition to the Owen Stanley Bange, which 
is 8,000 feet higher than Bellenden-Ker, and proportionately extensive 
in area. It being winter, a large number of the trees and shrubs were 
without flower or fruit, consequently could not be identified." 
In a few notes on the plants collected by D'Albertis in New 
Guinea, I find that Dr. 0. Beccari regards the flora of that island dis- 
tinctly Malayan, as he found only one Eucalyptus, two Banksias, and 
one Acacia that could be regarded as true Australian trees. But he 
had only a rudimentary knowledge of the affinity between the Austra- 
lian and New Guinea floras and was not in a position to either weaken 
or strengthen the belief of D'Albertis himself, that in a former age 
the two island continents were joined together and will be united 
again in the remote future. 
