absence of animal life, and almost that of the vegetable, for even the gumtrees common in this part, were not to be seen.  Our view to the southward was very limited, embracing only the Montgomery Islands of Captain King; they consist of six small rocky islets resting on an extensive coral flat, that we afterwards observed to be dry at low-water, and which extended to a large low sandy island, lying six miles west from them; the latter was not seen by Captain King, in his distant view of this neighbourhood.  The eastern and largest of the Montgomery Isles stands on the extreme of the coral flat; we found it to be 70 feet high, and bore South-West by South 7 miles from this point of Freshwater Cove.  The latitude we obtained in the course of the night gave a result of 15 degrees 49 minutes south.

April 10.

At daylight we continued pursuing our South by East course, following the same kind of low straight rocky shore, as that of yesterday afternoon.  We passed inside a reef fronting the shore from a mile south of Freshwater Cove; this passage was about half a mile wide and from 7 to 12 fathoms deep.  Having the flood-tide in our favour, we proceeded rapidly, and at the end of four miles, found the trend of the coast suddenly changed to East-North-East for two miles, when it again took a southerly direction, forming a chain of high rocky islets.  Deferring our examination of the main, lying about a mile in the rear of these islets, we kept on our South by East course, in the direction of some very high land now seen for the first time.  Three miles further brought us to a small rocky islet, where we landed for a set of angles.

Our hopes were considerably raised on reaching the top of this islet, by finding that we looked in vain for land towards the head of Collier Bay; the high land to the southward proved to be the south point of a large bay, having on its northern side similar high ranges.

LIZARDS.

This island was overrun with a great variety of lizards, in consequence of which we named it Lizard Island.  During our stay here, two birds,* rare on this part of the coast, were shot; they were of a smaller kind than any I had before seen, and differed from them in plumage, being without the white collar round the neck.  Leaving Lizard Island, we continued our southerly route, and ere long saw more land ahead, lying like a blue cloud on the horizon.  Ten miles brought us abreast of the high land we had first seen, and six more to the southern point of a bay, lying on its south-western side, where the duties of the survey again obliged us to land.  We considered ourselves now entering once more on the new lands of Australia, as Captain King could scarcely have had even a distant glimpse of this part; his extreme southern position being abreast of Freshwater Cove, from whence he describes the view of the coast as follows.  “The land to the southward trended deeply in, and appeared to me much broken in its character.”  We therefore naturally looked on everything here with a greater degree of interest, and with the view of affording time to examine the country, and determine the position of this point by observation, I arranged to pass the night in its vicinity.