of prey, since I detected a slender-bodied fly
(ichneumon) within a closed pitcher, having evidently forced its passage
under the lid to the interior, where an abundant store of putrescent
insects were collected. Whilst, therefore, these pitchers are answering
the double purpose, of being a reservoir to retain a fluid, however
produced, for the nourishment of the plant in the exigency of a dry
season, as also a repository of food for rapacious insects, as in
sarracenia, or the American pitcher-plant; it is also probable that the
air, disengaged by these drowned ants, may be important and beneficial to
the life of the Australian plant, as Sir James E. Smith has suggested, in
respect to the last-mentioned genus, wild in the swamp of Georgia and
Carolina.

(*Footnote. Flinders volume 1 page 64 and Brown's General Remarks in
Flinders volume 2 page 601 et seq.)

(**Footnote. Smith's Introduction to Botany page 150.)

"I spent much time in a fruitless search for flowering specimens of
cephalotus; all the plants were very small and weak, and showed no
disposition to produce flowers at the season, and none had more than
three or four ascidia."*

(*Footnote. Cunningham manuscripts.)

The only edible plants that Mr. Cunningham found were a creeping parsley
(Apium prostratum, Labil.) and a species of orach (Atriplex halimus,
Brown) the latter was used by us every day, boiled with salt provisions,
and proved a tolerable substitute for spinach or greens. During our visit
we caught but very few fish, and only a few oysters were obtained, on
account of the banks being seldom uncovered, and the presence of the
natives which prevented my trusting the people out of my sight for fear
of a quarrel. Shellfish of other sorts were obtained at Mistaken Island
in abundance, of which the most common were a patella and an haliotis;
the inhabitant of the former made a coarse, although a savoury dish.
There were also varieties of the following genera: namely, lepas, chiton,
cardium, pinna, nerita, two or three species of ostrea, a small mytilus,
and a small buccinum of great beauty; that covered the rocks and at low
water might be collected in abundance.

CHAPTER 4.
Leave King George the Third's Sound, and commence the survey of the West
Coast at Rottnest Island.
Another remarkable effect of mirage.
Anchor under, and land upon Rottnest Island.
Break an anchor.
Examine the coast to the northward.
Cape Leschenault.
Lancelin Island.
Ju