John Murphy caught four perches, one of which weighed two pounds.  The purple ant of the east coast has disappeared, and a similar one with brick-coloured head and thorax, but by no means so voracious, has taken its place.

The flooded-gum and the bloodwood were in blossom:  this usually takes place, at Moreton Bay, in November and December.  This different state of vegetation to the northward and southward, may perhaps account for the periodical migration of several kinds of birds.

June 21.—­A shower of rain fell, but cleared up at midnight.  We travelled nine miles north-west to lat. 16 degrees 9 minutes 41 seconds, over a country very much like that of the two preceding stages, and past several fine lagoons, richly adorned by the large showy flowers of a white Nymphaea, the seed-vessels of which some families of natives were busily gathering:  after having blossomed on the surface of the water, the seed-vessel grows larger and heavier, and sinks slowly to the bottom, where it rots until its seeds become free, and are either eaten by fishes and waterfowl, or form new plants.  The natives had consequently to dive for the ripe seed-vessels; and we observed them constantly disappearing and reappearing on the surface of the water.  They did not see us until we were close to them, when they hurried out of the water, snatched up some weapons and ran off, leaving their harvest of Nymphaea seeds behind.  Brown had visited another lagoon, where he had seen an old man and two gins; the former endeavoured to frighten him by setting the grass on fire, but, when he saw that Brown still approached, he retired into the forest.  We took a net full of seeds, and I left them a large piece of iron as payment.  On returning to the camp, we boiled the seeds, after removing the capsule; but as some of the numerous partitions had remained, the water was rendered slightly bitter.  This experiment having failed, the boiled seeds were then (Unclear:)tied with a little fat, which rendered them very palatable and remarkably satisfying.  The best way of cooking them was that adopted by the natives, who roast the whole seed-vessel.  I then made another trial to obtain the starch from the bitter potatoes, in which I succeeded; but the soup for eight people, made with the starch of sixteen potatoes, was rather thin.

We were encamped at a small creek, scarcely a mile from the river, from which John Murphy and Brown brought the leaves of the first palm trees we had seen on the waters of the gulf.  They belonged to the genus Corypha; some of them were very thick and high.

The mornings and evenings were very beautiful, and are surpassed by no climate that I have ever lived in.  It was delightful to watch the fading and changing tints of the western sky after sunset, and to contemplate, in the refreshing coolness of advancing night, the stars as they successively appeared, and entered on their nightly course.  The state of our health showed how congenial the climate was to