April, 19 22 The Queensland Naturalist. /S 
We come now to the Rattlesnake. This famous 
vessel arrived in Moreton Bay in October, 1847, and thence 
onward did much useful work, under the command of 
Captain Owen Stanley, with John lYIaegillivray as 
naturalist. A younger naturalist on the Rattlesnake was 
Thomas Huxley,* destined to achieve world-wide fame as 
a biologist. Moreover, it would appear that James Wilcox, 
of Sydney, a naturalist who sent many valuable bird- 
specimens and notes to Gould, was also aboard the vessel. 
The name of Wilcox is not mentioned in the Narrative of 
the voyage, but Maegillivray said of him, in a letter to 
Gould: ‘‘lie was employed by the late Captain Stanley to 
procure specimens of natural history for the Norwich and 
Ipswich Museums, and to his zeal and industry as a 
collector 1 was often much indebted.” Maegillivray 
himself was the distinguished ornithologist so warmly 
commended by Gould for his work among distinctive birds 
of North Queensland. “The officers of Her Majesty’s ship 
Rattlesnake says Gould, “so well employed their time 
in collecting the natural products of the Cape York district, 
that they added very materially to our knowledge of the 
fauna of that part of the continent.” 
The justice of this statement becomes evidenced in 
Maegillivray ’s Journal t and Gould’s Birds of Australia . 
Both works are replete with Maegillivray ’s observations 
upon birds, many of which he was the first to collect. Nor 
was Cape York the only place of note in respect of the 
work of the Rattlesnake. In May, 1848, the vessel was 
anchored ten days at Dunk Island, where, in addition to 
many useful observations, Maegillivray took a “new and 
handsome Flycatcher,” which Gould called Monarcha 
leucotis. 
Consideration of the cruise of the Rattlesnake brings 
us to a contemporary event of ornithological interest, 
viz., Kennedy’s tragic expedition from Rockingham Bay 
to Cape York. Tarn 0 ’ Shanter Point, opposite Dunk 
*It should be mentioned in passing that Professor S. B. J. 
Skertchly, for long an officer of the Queensland Field Natural- 
ists’ Club and Gould League of Bird-lovers, and still an Honor- 
ary Ranger under the Birds Protection Act, had the honor of 
being closely associated with Darwin, Huxley, and Wallace. 
It was his pleasure, as a young man, to assist Dr. Duncan to 
name some of Darwin’s corals from the “Beagle” voyage. 
“Huxley,” said Prof. Skertchly, recently, “built up my biology, 
and, I think, never quite forgave me for eschewing natural 
history for my first love, geology.” 
t “Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Rattlesnake’,” by John Maegillivray, 
London, 1852. 
