Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2.djvu/177

 156 'RVEY OF ?m INTER?RO.AL 18.  repository of food for rapacious insects, 88. in Jn. 5. araca, or the American pitcher.plant; it is also probable that the air, disengaged by these drowned ants, may be important and beneficial to the life of the Australian plant, .as Sir James E. Smith has suggested, in respect to the last- mentioned genus, wild in the swamp of Georgia and Carolina "I spent much time in a fruitless search for flowering specimens of cAalofus ; all the plants were very small and weak, and shewed no dis- position to produce flowers at the season, and none had more than three or four The only edible plants that Mr. Cunningham found were a creeping parsley, (ap/um rum, Labil,) and .a species of orach, Ha//mu, Brown); the latter was used by us every dy, boiled with salt provisions, and proved a tolerable substitute for spinach, or greens. During our visit we canght but.very few fish, and only a few oysters were obtained, on.account of the banks being seldom uncovered, and the presence of the natives, which prevented my trusting the people out of my sight for fear of a qum'rel. Shell-fish of other sorts were obtained at Mistaken Island in abundance, of which the most c(m. mon .we a palla and  CuWOHif !dSS.-

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