Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/328

300 beneath with silvery-white spots and bands on a tawny grown It proved to be the rare Telesto argenteo-ornatus, Hew., previous) recorded from "Western Australia"; and as it was fairly common here, I did not neglect to secure a good series. A good-sized black-and-white day-flying moth (Nyctemera sp.) was also not uncommon. I walked over to the far side of the island, and spent some little time in looking for shells on a stretch of coral-reef left dry by the receding tide, but met with very little success. A large light-coloured Purpura (ægrota), which had in almost every instance several specimens of a Crepidula partly embedded in the substance of its thick shell, was almost the only species observed. Many more shells were to be picked up on the sandy beaches, two handsome species of Voluta (nævosa and volva) being met with among others; and a Pearly Nautilus, in very good condition, surely a long way out of its latitude, was found by one of the boat's crew. Large numbers of the dried and bleached skeletons of sponges were strewn along the beach at high-water mark, and I came across a rounded block of pumice, much bigger than a man's head, which had drifted hither from some far-distant volcano, perhaps from Krakatao.

At noon we all met at the landing-place for lunch, of which the pièce de résistance was a boiled Wallaby shot that morning. A very little of this creature, however, went a long way, as it was about the most unpalatable dish I have ever tasted. This arose from the fact that the cook had forgotten the salt, and we had none of this necessary article with us. Sea-water was suggested as a substitute, but it could not be used, as all the water near the shore was charged with sulphuretted hydrogen, arising from the decay of the seaweed and Zostera washing about in it. The first lieutenant's face was a study when his beautifully white-painted whale-boat returned to the ship in the evening stained all over with a rusty-black hue, by the action of this gas on the white-lead paint. My messmates had enjoyed fairly good sport, as, besides the Wallabies, there were numbers of a very beautiful "bronze-wing" Pigeon, Phaps elegans, Temm., among the low bushes; and in the more open grassy places, a Bush-Quail, Turnix scintillans, Gould, was frequently flushed. This latter species is a little bird of sober though beautifully varied plumage, and appears to be peculiar to the Houtman's Abrolhos, having been first obtained there during the visit of the 'Beagle' in 1840.