100 
Tne Queensland Naturalist. 
August, 1922 
probably the most notable Queensland field naturalist of 
that period, something has already been said. lie took 
many new birds for Gould, and also collected for White, 
Higgles, and various museums. The chief trip in his rough 
and romantic life would seem to have been one he made 
(1871-72) in a small boat called the Naturalist, from 
Brisbane to New Guinea and the Am Islands in quest of 
specimens of natural history. lie brought back a fine 
collection, chiefly birds, including many from Cape York.* 
An interesting reference to that trip is hidden away in 
the story of the cruise of the Basilisk, a survey ship that 
was at Cape York fifty years ago. “Whilst here,” says 
Captain Moresby, “we fell in with a lonely waif of society 
named Cockerell, who has betaken himself to live in a tiny 
vessel of about eight tons, and, accompanied only by his son 
and two natives, cruises about these seas as a naturalist, 
and seems to be happy enough in his own way. His boat 
was laden with specimens of beautiful birds, and from the 
Aru Islands, 500 miles west of Somerset, which he had 
just left, he had brought back some boxes full of Great 
Birds of Paradise, of which he kindly gave me a specimen.” 
(Then follows a description of the bird.) 
It was probably about the same period that Captain 
Pennefather (quoted earlier) also met Cockerell. Half a 
century is a long time to think back, but the veteran 
mariner tells me that he remembers meeting a naturalist 
and his son, who possessed many bird-skins, cruising near 
Cape Grafton. There had been a dispute, and the son 
persuaded Captain Pennefather to allow him a passage 
back to Brisbane. Probably the Cockerells remained apart 
after that. 1 am told by “old hands” that Cockerell, senr., 
kept an hotel for some time in Brisbane, and afterwards 
died in Sydney; and that the son was last heard of in 
connection with a charge of manslaughter. 
Concerning Eli Waller, a second professional bird- man 
of the sixties, I can find very little. He had a taxidermist’s 
shop in Edward street, Brisbane, and, according to Higgles, 
possessed “a large and valuable collection,” and also a 
“scientific and extensive knowledge of the birds of 
Australia.” Some of that knowledge came out in Waller’s 
discovery (through a Mr. J. McKenzie, timber-getter, 
Mount Sampson) of the dainty Fig Parrot, which he 
besought Gould to name after Charles Coxen. With the 
latter Waller was associated in the discovery of the bower 
* Cockerell 's name is attached to a rare Northern Honey-eater, 
Ttilotis cockerclli, Gould. 
