260 
SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL 
1819. ham landed, and collected a variety of interesting 
AugT 6 . plants. The open banks of the river were co- 
vered with salicornice, and other common cheno- 
podece; and, in the midst of the usual assemblage 
of rhizophorece, the avicennia tomentosa , Linn, was 
observed of remarkable growth, being in many 
parts from fifty to sixty feet high, three feet in 
diameter at the base, and of a straight tapering 
poplar shape. 
Fish was plentiful, and, on the muddy banks, 
as the water fell, we saw myriads of small am- 
phibious fishes skipping about: they are probably 
of the same kind as those seen by Captain Cook 
at Thirsty Sound, and by Captain Flinders, at 
Keppel Bay*, on the east coast. Captain Cook 
describes the species he saw to be a small fish, 
about the size of a minnow, furnished with two 
very strong breast fins* by the assistance of 
which it leaped away upon being approached, 
as nimbly as a frog. The fish I have just noticed 
appeared to be of a very similar description, ex- 
cepting that it did not seem to avoid the water, 
as that of Thirsty Sound ; for Captain Cook says, 
in a subsequent paragraph, that it preferred the 
water to land ; for it frequently leaped out of 
the sea, and pursued its way upon dry ground, 
and chose rather to leap from stone to stone 
* Flinders' Terra Australis, vol. ii. p. 26, 
