highest part not more than twelve feet above high-water mark, with
several groves of low trees, and is overrun with tall sedge-like grass;
the second is composed of a strip of heaped-up fragments of coral, to
windward covered with bushes, and to leeward separated from the reef by a
belt of mangroves; the third is a mere clump of mangroves not deserving
of further notice. The botany of an island of this class, of which there
are many on the North-east coast of Australia, may serve as a specimen,
as the plants are few. Mimusops kaukii constituted the principal part of
the arboreal vegetation, Clerodendrum inerme and Premna obtusifolia form
low straggling thickets--scattered bushes of Suriana maritima and Pemphis
acida fringe the sandy margin of the island, and behind these the
beautiful Josephinia grandiflora, a large white-flowered Calyptranthus,
Vitex ovata and a Tribulus creep along the sand, or spread out their
procumbent branches.

Traces of natives, but not very recent, were met with in a dried-up well
dug to a great depth, and several low, dome-shaped huts, and numerous
fireplaces, around which remains of shellfish and turtles were profusely
scattered. Many of the heads of these last animals were here and
elsewhere seen stuck upon branches of trees, sometimes a dozen together.

July 31st.

I landed this morning with Mr. Obree, on one of the Two Isles off Cape
Flattery, and we were picked up by the ship in passing. It is
well-wooded, chiefly with the Mimusops kaukii, trees of which are here
often sixty feet high and 3 in diameter. Under the bark I found two new
land-shells (to be described in the Appendix) one of them a flattish
Helix, in prodigious numbers--and this more than ever satisfied me that
even the smallest islands and detached reefs of the north-east coast may
have species peculiar to themselves, nor did I ever return from any one
of the 37 upon which I landed without some acquisitions to the
collection.

STAY AT LIZARD ISLAND.

We remained a fortnight at Lizard Island, at the usual anchorage, off a
sandy beach on its north-western side. Lizard Island is conspicuous from
a distance, on account of its peak*--the central part of a mountainous
ridge running across the island, and dividing it into two portions, of
which the eastern is hilly and the western low, and intersected by small
ridges of slight elevation. The island is about 2 1/2 miles in greatest
diameter; the rock is a coarse grey granite, ea