Among the plants of the island the most important is a wild species of plantain or banana, afterwards found to range along the North-East coast and its islands as far as Cape York. Here I saw for the first time a species of Sciadophyllum, one of the most singular trees of the eastern coastline of tropical Australia; a slender stem, about thirty feet in height, gives off a few branches with immense digitate dark and glossy leaves and long spike-like racemes of small scarlet flowers, a great resort for insects and insect-feeding birds.
COMMUNICATION WITH NATIVES STOPPED.
Soon after the ship had come to an anchor, some natives came off in their canoes and paid us a visit, bringing with them a quantity of shellfish (Sanguinolaria rugosa) which they eagerly exchanged for biscuit. For a few days afterwards we occasionally met them on the beach, but at length they disappeared altogether, in consequence of having been fired at with shot by one of two of the young gentlemen of the Bramble, on a shooting excursion, whom they wished to prevent from approaching too closely a small village, where they had their wives and children. Immediate steps were taken, in consequence, to prevent the recurrence of such collisions, when thoughtless curiosity on one side is apt to be promptly resented on the other, if numerically superior in force. I saw nothing in the appearance of these natives to distinguish them from those of Goold Island, and the canoes are the same. The men had large prominent cicatrices on the shoulders, and across the breast and belly, the septum of the nose was perforated, and none of the teeth had been removed. I saw no weapons, and some rude armlets were their only ornaments.
THE BARNARD ISLES.
On June 6th we ran to the northward 15 1/2 miles, and anchored at noon under Number 3 of the Barnard Isles, a group consisting of six high rocky wooded isles, the two southernmost of which are separated from the rest by an interval of four miles. I landed upon the two largest (1 and 3 of the charts) on the first only once. I there found nothing of much interest, except some very thick beds of conglomerate superimposed upon a compact basaltic-looking rock. Number 3, on the other hand, consists of mica slate, much contorted, and altered from its usual appearance, and containing lead ore (galena) with several veins of quartz, one of which, about two feet in thickness, traverses the island from side to side.
BOTANY OF THE BARNARD ISLES.
The islands of the North-East coast of Australia hitherto and subsequently visited during the survey, afford all the gradations between the simplest form of a sandbank upon a coral reef scantily covered with grass, a few creeping plants and stunted bushes on one hand--and on the other a high, rocky, well-wooded island with an undulating succession of hills and valleys. In those of the latter class, to a certain extent only in the islands of Rockingham Bay, but in a very striking degree in those to the northward, there is so great a similarity in the vegetation, that an illustration of the botany may be taken from one of the Barnard Isles, Number 3--exhibiting what may be termed an Indo-Australian Flora.
The upper margin of the coral beach is overrun with Ipomoea maritima, a large purple-flowered Bossiaea, and some other leguminous plants, of which the handsomest is Canvallia baueriana, a runner with large rose-coloured flowers. To these succeeds a row of bushes of Scaevola koenigii, and Tournefortia argentea, with an occasional Guettarda speciosa, or Morinda citrifolia, backed by thickets of Paritium tiliaceum, and other shrubs supporting large Convolvulaceae, vine-like species of Cissus; Guilandina bonduc, a prickly Caesalpinia, Deeringia coelosioides, and a variety of other climbers. Penetrating this shrubby border, one finds himself in what in New South Wales would be called a brush or scrub, and in India a jungle, extending over the greater part of the island. Overhead are trees of moderate size, whose general character is constituted by a nearly straight stem, seldom branching except near the top, and furnished with glossy dark-green leaves. Interspersed with them there are many which attain an enormous size, as in the case of a Hernanda, a Castanospermum, two fabaceous trees, and others of which neither flowers nor fruit were observed. Two palms, Seaforthia elegans, and Livistona inermis, also occur here. By far the most remarkable vegetable productions are the larger kinds of climbers. The principal of these, with a leafless and almost branchless cable-like stem, sometimes two or three hundred yards in length, rises over the summits of the tallest trees, and connects one with another in its powerful folds, occasionally descending to the ground. Another climber, Lestibudesia arborescens, rises by its slender stems to the tops of the trees, hiding them in its cascade-like masses and graceful festoons of exuberant foliage. Besides several other exogenous woody climbers, of which a very remarkable one is a Bauhinia, with a compressed stem spirally twisted round its axis--the most interesting is Calamus australis, rising in a clump, then arching along the ground and from tree to tree in a similar manner to Flagellaria indica, here also abundant. Among the other plants of these brushes, are the curious Dracontium polyphyllum, with large simple and pinnatifid leaves, creeping like ivy up the trunks and lower branches of the trees--parasitical Loranthaceae, with long dependent tufts of rush-like leaves--enormous masses of Acrosticum alcicorne and A. grande, with an occasional Hoya carnosa, Dendrobium, or other epiphyte. When the soil is rich Caladium macrorhizon grows gregariously in shady places, and Hellenia coerulea on their margins--and among stones and sometimes on trees, tufts of Grammitis australis spread out their large and handsome undivided fronds.
VICTORIA RIFLE-BIRD.
Two species of rat occur here--one is the large bandicoot of India, Mus giganteus, doubtless introduced by some wrecked vessel, the other is the pretty little Mus indicus, found on all the islands of the north-east coast and Torres Strait. Among the birds, we found numbers of the Megapodius, always a welcome addition to our bill of fare; but our greatest prize was a new and splendid rifle-bird, which Mr. Gould has since described from my specimens and named Ptiloris victoriae, as a mark of respect and gratitude for the patronage bestowed upon his great work on the Birds of Australia, in the forthcoming supplement to which it will be figured along with some other novelties of the Voyage of the Rattlesnake.