Reptilian Denizens of Wallaby Islands Succumb to Wiles of Thirsty Entomologists Living at Cannery

Adrift in the sandy flats of the Wallaby Islands off the coast of Australia searching for strange reptiles, Dr. G. M. Allen '01, Associate Professor and Curator of Mammals at the University Museum, and William Schevill, graduate research worker, describe their experiences as members of the expedition to Australia of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in letters to the department. The expedition, which is under the direction of Professor W. M. Wheeler, left this country on July 25 last year. Excerpts follow, telling of a trip made by Dr. Allen and Schevill to a little-visited coral island off the central coast of Western Australia in search of reptiles and other species. Dr. Allen wrote: "I thought you might like to know of our side trip out to Houtman's Abrolhos or the Wallaby Islands, a little group lying some 50 miles off Geraldton, the type locality of half a dozen reptiles according to the fine list A. L. made out for us. These are old coral islands, flat and surrounded by barrier reefs and shoals, and apparently but little visited for various obvious reasons. However, as a venture, a man at Geraldton has undertaken this summer a lobster-canning industry there and told us to come and stay at his camp there if we liked. The only way was to go with a fishing boat, which dropped us at the West Wallaby Island and agreed to stop for us again in two weeks, after making their fishing cruise. Schevill and I thought we ought to make a try for the topotypes, so gathered our blankets and provisions, reaching the place after a rather rough passage of a day and a night. We had an interesting time and secured most everything we went for. . . Together we turned over most of the loose rock on the island and after much search secured 16 species of reptiles, including, as near as we can tell from Waite's Reptiles of Southern Australia, all the topotype species at least--several geckos, two legless lizards, spring and long-tailed egernias, Amphibolurus, the small python which is common there, etc. . . There were thousands of a dark wedge-tailed Shearwater just about to commence breeding and smaller numbers of a small white-bellied one, which we learned later are described as local races. . . The land birds are very few, one--a little scrub wren described by Alexander in 1922; another the little quail also a topotypical speciman. There is an abundance of small Wallaby here, an island race of Macropus eugenii. . . Our two weeks passed very quickly and pleasantly, though water was very scarce and we were limited to about two cups a day, which is a bit thin when one is ranging about in hot weather.

"Our plans are still a bit hazy for the more distant future. At this moment our luggage is being carted away to the Railway Station for the night train to Margaret River in the extreme Southwest--said to be good country--but all West Australia is badly "shot" in many ways. I hope to get bats there at last, also fossils are known from the caves, etc. Probably we turn east again by late November, when Schevill and I plan to get to Alice Springs in very central Australia for desert things we are told occur here. We hope to make Queensland, perhaps not till Dr. Wheeler's return in late December. Everyone says, when we tell how few the things are here, 'But in the North'."

Schevill writes: "We waited about twelve hours aboard the ketch Era, whose name well reflects the leisurely ways of her personnel, while the fishermen sobered up and got ready for sea, and finally landed here after a ten hour trip spread over a day and a half.--We hope they come back for us before we have to take to distilling sea water.--Dr. Allen and I have enjoyed ourselves muchly--this seems rather like breaking the hotel hoodoo--and I think we're getting a pretty fair collection, at least of the land Vertebrates. . . We have managed enough to eat, especially with occasional wallaby gobs, or crayfish given us by Mr. Hosking, the cannery boss, not to mention mutton birds and fish; there is also a remarkably jeestly oyster on the reef to the south, which Dr. Allen and I sampled briefly yesterday.

"The infant cannery, scarcely established, employs two fishermen and five factory hands, including the boss. They have very sweetly allowed us to camp in the lee of the factory, by the scanty water supply. The factory itself is not very impressive, consisting mostly of gunny sacking spread over a slight framework, with here and there a strip of echoing sheet iron. Their crayfish, however, are much more attractive, being a very noble sort of langouste. . . (Eight days later)--By this time, I am not so sure of its nobility, but is at least a very solid bourgeois.

"We passed by the well (reported in the center of the island) soon after I wrote the first part of this letter, and found the water surprisingly potable; of this we were very glad on the tenth day, by which time we had pretty well dried out. After all, an average daily consumption of a cup and a half of water apiece (including that used in cooking) isn't so very much in such a windy sunny place, and it seemed even less after the fresh fruit was gone, and we began munching prunes. On the tenth day we took some cheese and sardines in to the well and had us a regular water drunk, after which we went over to the west shore and bathed in some of the reef pools and took the rest of the afternoon off in warm sandy comfort.

"A day or so later we actually captured a wee Heteronota bynoei, and in jubilation decided we were ready for the boat (this was the last species undiscovered). However, we viewed a great deal of empty horizon before Dr. Allen finally spotted her sails from the top of the beach; in the mean time we continued to collect, and got a few more reptiles--some in Dr. Allen's traps. In fact, we rushed out and shot and skinned one last wallaby while the Era was feeling her way through the reefs, and then went aboard as soon as she had anchored. The fishermen were actually in a hurry, and weighed after only twenty minutes at anchor, soon driving on to a sand bar in their haste. Luckily, we didn't stick there long, and after a rather rough passage fetched Geraldton shortly before daylight yesterday.

"And so we are back in the miserable hotel again, once more coping with the double ply British pudding.--We are finally managing to eat off separate plates again, instead of snatching alternate mouthfuls out of the same pot.--Well, we hope at least that our collection is worth the fortnight."