THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGED. 
”)34 
north of Prince of Wales Island/ It appears evident that some further investigations 
of tidal phenomena in this neighbourhood are requisite in order that some means may 
be found to enable the seamen to calculate with certainty the time and height of high 
water, and the change of the streams, a matter of considerable importance where these 
run with great velocity through narrow channels. 
Behind the shore of the small bay in which Somerset lies, the land rises steeply, and 
is covered with wood, except where clearings have been made around two conspicuous 
sets of wooden buildings, the one the residence of the magistrate, the other the barracks 
of the water police. 
The country is wooded in every direction, but with constantly recurring open patches 
covered with scattered Acacias, Gum Trees, and Proteacese with only grass growing beneath. 
In the dense woods, with their tall forest trees and tangled masses of creepers, one might 
for a moment imagine oneself back in Fiji or Api, but the characteristic open spaces, 
with scattered Eucalypti , remind one at once that one is in Australia. The principal 
features of Australian and Indian vegetation are, as it were, dove-tailed into one another. 
In the woods, the tree trunks are covered with climbing Aroids, and often with Orchids. 
Two Palms, an Areca with a tall slender stem not thicker than a man’s wrist, but 
50 feet high, and a most beautiful Caryota, strong evidence of Indian affinities in the 
flora, are abundant. The cocoanut palm, as is well known, is not found growing 
naturally anywhere in Australia, though it is abundant in islands not far from Cape 
York. At Cape York some trees had been planted, but they did not appear to thrive. 
One of them, already more than eight years old, at which age it ought to have been 
bearing fruit, had as yet a trunk only a few feet in height. A Rattan Palm (Calamus 
sp.), trailing everywhere between the underwood, is a terrible opponent as one tries 
to creep through the forest in search of birds. 
The number and variety of birds at Cape York is astonishing. Two species of 
Ptilotis ( Ptilotis chrysotis and Ptilotis jiligera), different from those at Fiji, but closely 
resembling them, suck the honey from, or search for insects on, the scarlet blossoms of 
the same Erytlirina tree as that at Fiji. With these are to be seen a Myzomela, and the 
gorgeous little Brush -tongued Parroquet (Trichoglossus swain soni), which flies screaming 
about in small flocks, and gathers so much honey from the flowers, that it pours out of 
the bird’s beak when it falls shot to the ground. Amongst the same flowers is to be seen 
also a true Honey Bird ( Nectarinia frencita), with brilliant metallic blue tints on its 
throat. The common White Crested Cockatoo ( Cacatua galerita ) is here wary and difficult 
to get near, though not so much so as in the frequented parts of Victoria. The Great- 
Black Cockatoo ( Microglossus aterrimus ) is to be found at Cape York, but none were 
seen. The Pheasant Cuckoo ( Centropus phasianus) rises occasionally from the long grass 
in the opens, and though of the cuckoo tribe, has exactly the appearance of a pheasant 
1 Australian Directory, vol. ii. p. 337, 3rd eel,, 
