United States or Iceland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The cypress-pine, several species of Melaleuca, and a fine Ironbark, with broad lanceolate, but not cordate, glaucous leaves, and very dark bark, formed the forest. An arborescent Acacia, in dense thickets, intercepted our course several times. Bronze-winged pigeons were very numerous, but exceedingly shy.
A low shrubby Acacia with sigmoid phyllodia was frequent on the hills. Bronze-winged pigeons were very numerous, and I saw a pair of Geophaps plumifera rising from under a shady rock, as I was riding down a rocky creek.
When the hungry hawk comes circling over the grove of crookedy gum in which two magpies are feeding their callow young, the bush is soon filled with cries of alarm. The plump quail hides himself in the depths of a thick tussock; the bronze-winged pigeon dives into the shelter of the nearest scrub, while all the noisiest scolds of the air gather round the intruder.
Depart from Ularring. Re-enter scrubs. Scrubs more dense. A known point. Magnetic rocks. Lowans' eggs. Numbers of the birds. Crows, hawks. Natives and water. Induce natives to decamp. Unusually vigorous growth of scrubs. Alec sights Mount Churchman. Bronze-winged pigeons. Pigeon Rocks. Depart. Edge of a cliff. Mount Churchman in view. Some natives arrive. A wandering pet. Lake Moore. Rock-holes.
Swarms of them preceded us for one or two miles, from tree to tree, making the air ring with their incessant screams, and then returning in long flights to their favourite haunts, from which we had disturbed them. We saw four kangaroos; and shot some bronze-winged pigeons; in the crop of one I found a small Helix with a long spire, a form I do not remember ever having seen before in the colony.
Elsewhere the banks were scarcely three feet above high-water level, and generally fringed with mangroves, behind which in many places were extensive clear flats, reaching occasionally the sides of the inlet towards the upper parts, and forming at that time the resort of large flights of the bronze-winged pigeon.
Word Of The Day