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AURORA AUSTRALIS. scarce, and a section of the company decided that members of the scientific staff were much more likely to excel as connoisseurs in the matter of food stuffs, than prove experts in ship-building. As the labour of examining the natural products at hand did not present an arduous aspect, the scientist above referred to came manfully forward, and offered his services in this domain.

Instructions were issued to the effect that explorations should not be conducted far from camp, and the route proposed to be taken should be clearly defined before setting out. The investigator had been absent on his quest for over two hours, and the commander becoming anxious set out in search of the wanderer.

The search party had gone hardly a couple of hundred yards into the jungle, when they stumbled upon the prone body of the missing man. A giant Tick was investigating the carcase and apparently just about to commence operations on its prize. The obnoxious creature was forthwith despatched, and the body of the martyr reverently taken back to camp.

He still breathed heavily, but no wounds could be found on the body. A dread feeling seized us for, though living things had no terror for us, yet the intangible found us weak.