The hills were covered with a dense scrubby bush of bamboos and prickly trees and shrubs, the plains were adorned with hundreds of noble palm-trees, and in many places with a luxuriant shrubby vegetation.

Birds were plentiful and very interesting, and I now saw for the first time many Australian forms that are quite absent from the islands westward.

Small white cockatoos were abundant, and their loud screams, conspicuous white colour, and pretty yellow crests, rendered them a very important feature in the landscape.
This is the most westerly point on the globe where any of the family are to be found.

Some small honeysuckers of the genus Ptilotis, and the strange moundmaker (Megapodius gouldii), are also here first met with on the traveller's journey eastward.

The last mentioned bird requires a fuller notice.
The Megapodidae are a small family of birds found only in Australia and the surrounding islands, but extending as far as the Philippines and Northwest Borneo.