Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/107

] to doubt, whether Bligh was very sensible to the honour which the botanists were desirous of paying him.

Toward the south-east, at a little distance from the beach, we found an apple tree, the stem of which was near six feet and a half high, and about two inches thick. It did not appear to us that it had ever been grafted.

Our fishers were not unsuccessful at this anchoring place. The fires they kindled along the shore in the night attracted a large quantity of fish to their nets. The stratagem had before succeeded so completely with the fishers of the Esperance in Dentrecasteaux Strait, that they had laid in a stock of fish sufficient for some months, part dried, and part pickled in strong brine.

Several times in the course of the day I was present when they hauled the seine, and always observed some new species of diodon (porcupine fish). I admired the readiness with which these little fishes erected the prickles that cover them, by distending their bodies as soon as they were touched: but they lowered them, and kept them close to their skin, throughout their whole length, as soon as they imagined themselves out of danger. This observation shows, that the attitude given to fish of this genus, by distending them as much as possible, in which manner they are ex-