(Footnote.  Hawkesworth volume 3 page 164.)

(**Footnote.  Flinders volume 2 page 49.)

Several kangaroos were started by our wooding party but none were taken.  In the gullies Mr. Cunningham reaped an excellent harvest, both of seeds and plants.

Here as well as at every other place that we had landed upon within the tropic, the air is crowded with a species of butterfly, a great many of which were taken.  It is doubtless the same species as that which Captain Cook remarks as so plentiful in Thirsty Sound; he says, “we found also an incredible number of butterflies, so that for the space of three or four acres, the air was so crowded with them, that millions were to be seen in every direction, at the same time, that every branch and twig were covered with others that were not upon the wing."* The numbers seen by us were indeed incredible; the stem of every grass-tree (xanthorrhoea) which plant grows abundantly upon the hills, was covered with them, and on their taking wing the air appeared, as it were, in perfect motion.

(Footnote.  Hawkesworth volume 3 page 125.)

It is a new species, and is described by my friend Mr. W.S.  Macleay, in the Appendix, under the name of Euploea hamata.

June 17.

On the 17th we left the bay and passed round the north end of Magnetical Island.  Several natives were seen on a sandy beach at the north end, where deep gullies indicated the presence of fresh water.  Our course was then directed across Halifax Bay towards the Palm Islands, passing inside a small rocky islet marked i, on the chart, and another of larger size, k.  In a South by East direction from these islands is an opening in the land round which the sea was observed to trend; it was supposed to communicate with the water seen from the heights of Cape Cleveland over the land at the bottom of the bay; and it is probable, from the mist which this morning occupied a considerable space of the low land fronting the hills, that a large body of water exists there.  Calms and light airs detained us until two o’clock, when a fresh breeze sprung up from the eastward, to which we made sail, but the glare of the sun, shining in the direction of our course, obliged our hauling up to avoid the risk of running thus dark with excess of bright upon any rocks or shoals that might be in our way; and as the low coastline of this part of the bar was distinctly traced, we steered towards the island marked 2, near which the cutter was anchored, at eight o’clock, in eleven fathoms’ mud.

June 18.

At eight o’clock the following morning we got under sail, but delayed by light winds we were, at noon, within half a league of the island, 2.  As there was no immediate appearance of a breeze I landed on a steep beach, at the North-West end of the island, whence the latitude was observed to be 18 degrees 50 minutes 15 seconds, and from which I obtained a useful set of bearings.  Near our landing-place