We all today began to feel the want of food; since Sunday night we had subsisted on nothing but rice and tea, and only in very small quantities at a time, as the heavy rain had materially interrupted our cooking.  As there was plenty of game in this valley I determined to halt for a day previously to my return to the party, for the double purpose of exploring the valley and of shooting game.

Cuckoo-pheasant.

The large bird which was the most abundant here was the Cuculus phasianus or pheasant cuckoo.  This bird in colour, in length of tail, in its size, and general appearance so closely resembles the hen pheasant of England that, when it is on the wing, it is almost impossible to tell the difference; its habits and food are also identical with that of the English pheasant.  The chief point of distinction is that its toes point two before and two behind, in the same manner as those of a parrot; but what is very remarkable about this bird is that, although, like the other Scansores, it delights in climbing and running up trees, it is equally fond of running along the ground in the manner a pheasant does.

Sporting.

This day I found plenty of these birds in a cover of long dry grass and bushes about half my height.  From this kind of ground I descended to deep lagoons in the bottoms, with rushes, reeds, and dense tropical vegetation around them, amongst which the bamboo and pandanus bore a conspicuous figure; as I beat this cover the pheasants, with their whirring noise, rose on all sides of me, and my Westley Richards was kept in constant operation.  I never enjoyed a better day’s pheasant shooting in any preserve in England; and I may here remark that North-Western Australia is as good a country for sport in the shooting way as I am acquainted with; whilst for every kind of sport except wild-fowl shooting the southern part of Australia is the worst country in the world.  My bag being full, and my companions very hungry, I had no excuse for staying longer away from them, and therefore returned, although very loth to leave such beautiful scenery and such excellent sport.

Fertile country descried.

In the interval between the showers, and whilst the men were trying to kindle a fire, I ascended a sandstone range under the shelter of some rocks near the summit of which we were encamped; from this elevated position I saw a far better country to the south of us than any we had yet traversed; and the prospect was so cheering in this direction that I felt assured, when it was once gained with the horses, we should be able to travel on with comparative rapidity and facility.

Native haunts.

Having emptied my bag I started again to commence the exploration of the valley we were in.  It sloped first in a north-easterly and then in a nearly easterly direction; the river that ran through it was in some places almost dry, or was rather a chain of large ponds than a river, several of these ponds being more than a hundred yards across.  I followed the valley down for about five miles in the direction of Prince Regent’s River and found to my surprise that this part was by no means thinly inhabited by natives; still, as none of the traces I had yet seen were very recent, I trusted that we should not fall in with any considerable body.