14 
The Queensland Naturalist 
March, 1929 
and plants generally (that still survive), and forming a 
demesne where the birds and butterflies he loved so well 
could disport themselves. Here also- was reared his 
family of two daughters and five sons. 
Ii. Illidge ’s father manifested some interest in but- 
terflies, but home influences apparently did not minister 
to his early love of birds and insects and Nature’s beauty 
generally. 
As a schoolboy he preferred to roam the Three-Mile 
Scrub (Kelvin Grove) to playing cricket, and during this 
period (1864) he also visited, for 6 months or so, an uncle 
who lived at Mt. Ker, an outstation of Clifton, Darling 
Downs, and here he would repair to King's Creek, close 
at hand, that a prevalent drought had tenanted with 
birds he had never seen before, and so proved a great 
attraction for the young naturalist. 
About this time, and whilst still residing with his 
father at Milton, he must have met Mr. Sylvester Diggles, 
who dwelt at Kangaroo Point, close at hand, who, as 
shown by his superb work — “The Ornithology of Aus- 
tralia” — that, however, he was unable to complete, and 
the fact that from 1858 onwards he collected and for- 
warded Lepidoptera to the British Museum, was able to 
direct Illidge to a systematic field inquiry into these 
phases of natural history. Mr. and Mrs. Coxen’s influence 
must also be taken into account, the latter’s especially, in 
promoting his early attentions as a collector to Con- 
chology. 
Meanwhile, he found a congenial companion in J. 
Sankey (Major Sankey), with whom he became associ- 
ated in 1871. Not only did he explore, together with 
Sankey, the surrounding country on foot — Taylor’s 
Range especially — but Illidge had already a boat, and 
had made visits to the Bay, and had roamed in quest of 
birds over much of Stradbroke Island. (Vide this journal, 
vol. v., p. 90, 1926.) He and Sankey again secured an 
old ship’s boat, which they fitted up, and almost every 
week-end and holiday saw them down the river and fur- 
ther exploring from Amity Point Mandarewa to (South- 
port). Both Sankey and Illidge himself have narrated 
incidents that recalled the latter’s wonderful walking 
enterprises, also the proficiency of both at tree climbing, 
necessitated by the nature of their pursuits — the quest 
of birds and insects. 
When Illidge had found a home for himself, W. 1 1. 
Miskin was making an intensive study here of Australian 
butterflies, but we have no evidence yielded by their tes- 
