found. As usual the megapodius was plentiful, and one of our party
killed six in a few hours. I also shot a fine large crested pigeon, of a
species hitherto considered peculiar to the settled parts of New South
Wales, and to which the singularly inappropriate specific name of
antarcticus is applied; it thus ranges 380 miles within the tropics.

FITZROY ISLAND.

June 20th.

After anchoring for a short time to form a station, we finally came to
under Fitzroy Island, half a mile from the shore. This island is about
five miles in circumference, high and well-wooded, with two peaks, one of
which is 861 feet in height. The rock, when exposed, is granitic. The
small bay on the western side of the island, where the ship lay, has a
steep beach of fragments of dead coral, through which oozes the water of
two streamlets, at one of which the ship completed her stock with great
facility. Following upwards one of the two branches of the principal
stream through a narrow gully, one reaches a small basin-like valley,
filled with dense brush, through which it is difficult to pass, on
account of the unusual quantity of the prickly Calamus palm. Several
trees of the pomegranate (Punica granatum) were met with bearing fruit;
as this plant is found wild in India, and here occurred in the centre of
a thick brush not likely to have been visited by Europeans, it is
probably indigenous. A kind of yam (Dioscorea bulbifera) was found here,
and proved good eating. In consequence of this, a party from the ship was
sent to dig for more, but, having mistaken the plant, they expended all
their time and trouble in rooting up a convolvulus, with small, inedible,
and probably cathartic tubers.

FIND A NEW VAMPIRE BAT.

A new species of large fruit-eating bat, or flying-fox (Pteropus
conspicillatus) making the third Australian member of the genus, was
discovered here. On the wooded slope of a hill I one day fell in with
this bat in prodigious numbers, presenting the appearance, while flying
along in the bright sunshine, so unusual in a nocturnal animal, of a
large flock of rooks. On close approach a strong musky odour became
apparent, and a loud incessant chattering was heard. Many of the branches
were bending under their loads of bats, some in a state of inactivity,
suspended by their hind claws, others scrambling along among the boughs,
and taking to wing when disturbed. In a very short time I procured as
many specimens as I wished, three or four a