After anchoring for a short time to form a station, we finally came to under Fitzroy Island, half a mile from the shore.  This island is about five miles in circumference, high and well-wooded, with two peaks, one of which is 861 feet in height.  The rock, when exposed, is granitic.  The small bay on the western side of the island, where the ship lay, has a steep beach of fragments of dead coral, through which oozes the water of two streamlets, at one of which the ship completed her stock with great facility.  Following upwards one of the two branches of the principal stream through a narrow gully, one reaches a small basin-like valley, filled with dense brush, through which it is difficult to pass, on account of the unusual quantity of the prickly Calamus palm.  Several trees of the pomegranate (Punica granatum) were met with bearing fruit; as this plant is found wild in India, and here occurred in the centre of a thick brush not likely to have been visited by Europeans, it is probably indigenous.  A kind of yam (Dioscorea bulbifera) was found here, and proved good eating.  In consequence of this, a party from the ship was sent to dig for more, but, having mistaken the plant, they expended all their time and trouble in rooting up a convolvulus, with small, inedible, and probably cathartic tubers.

FIND A NEW VAMPIRE BAT.

A new species of large fruit-eating bat, or flying-fox (Pteropus conspicillatus) making the third Australian member of the genus, was discovered here.  On the wooded slope of a hill I one day fell in with this bat in prodigious numbers, presenting the appearance, while flying along in the bright sunshine, so unusual in a nocturnal animal, of a large flock of rooks.  On close approach a strong musky odour became apparent, and a loud incessant chattering was heard.  Many of the branches were bending under their loads of bats, some in a state of inactivity, suspended by their hind claws, others scrambling along among the boughs, and taking to wing when disturbed.  In a very short time I procured as many specimens as I wished, three or four at a shot, for they hung in clusters—­but, unless killed outright, they remained suspended for some time—­when wounded they are to be handled with difficulty, as they bite severely, and on such occasions their cry reminds one of the squalling of a child.  The flesh of these large bats is reported excellent; it is a favourite food with the natives, and more than once furnished a welcome meal to Leichhardt and his little party, during their adventurous journey to Port Essington.

One day we were surprised to see a small vessel approaching the anchorage from the southward.  She proved to be a cutter of twenty-five tons, called the Will-o-the-Wisp, fitted out by a merchant in Sydney, and sent in a somewhat mysterious way (so as to ensure secrecy) to search for sandalwood upon the north-east coast of Australia.  If found in sufficient quantity, a party was to be left to cut it, while the vessel returned