Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/305

] ed themselves to cut down the cocoa-nut trees for the sake of the fruit. They carefully searched for the young leaves on the tops of the trees, which are very tender, and afforded very agreeable refreshment to people who had lived long on salted provisions. If we had permitted them, they would not have left a cocoa-nut tree in the island; and that anchorage would have been deprived, perhaps for ever, of a resource extremely agreeable to navigators.

The night overtook us, when in the middle of the wood, and we were entertained with the charming spectacle of a prodigious number of glow worms, which diffused so much brightness as to dazzle, rather than enlighten us.

It was the time at which the species of crab called cancer ruricola, leaves the holes which it digs. On our way to the place where the boat was waiting for us, we trod upon several of them, and some of our party, before they knew what animal it was, were apprehensive that it was some venomous reptile.

18th. The next day I visited the south-east part of the island; but vines of different kinds prevented me from penetrating far into the forests.

Different species of the epidendrum adorned the trunks of the largest trees, and grew in the midst of a great number of ferns equally parasitical. We