596 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



huge Spiders (Lycosa), which inhabit the " Desertas," small out- 

 liers of the island, and which feed on Lizards, which they hunt 

 and kill. I fed the Spiders on Cockroaches. One of them 

 escaped, but it was brought back to me after a week by Captain 

 Maclear, rather crushed, he having discovered it with his toe in 

 the extremity of one of his boots. 



At Juan Fernandez a living young Fur-Seal, about two feet in 

 length, was taken on board. It followed us about, crying like 

 a child to be fed, and was never happy unless it was being 

 nursed and petted. I tried to feed it with condensed milk, but 

 it soon died. When it was hungry, if blandishments did not 

 succeed in drawing attention at once to its wants, the animal, 

 though so young, became at once enraged and made determined 

 efforts to snarl and bite, with a view of enforcing its demands. 



At the same island a Kid, one of the direct descendants of 

 Alexander Selkirk's Goats, also came on board, and learnt all 

 kinds of tricks on the homeward voyage. We should have 

 liked to have had a pet Monkey with us, but Monkeys are 

 strictly forbidden, by a special Admiralty regulation, on survey- 

 ing ships, because one once destroyed a valuable chart which 

 had just been completed with great labour. Even a Marmoset, 

 which I bought at Bahia, was considered to come under the 

 regulation and perished in consequence. 



concluding Remarks. — I did not suffer at all from the confine- 

 ment of ship-life. It is wonderful how completely practice 

 enables a man so to modify his movements as to perform with 

 success, in a ship constantly in motion, even the most delicate 

 operations. The adjustments of the body to the motion of the 

 ship in ordinary weather, become, after a time, so much a matter 

 of habit as to be quite unconscious. I found no difficulty in 

 working with the microscope with the highest powers (1,100 

 diameters), even when the ship was rolling heavily. 



There are many worries and distractions, such as letters and 

 newspapers, which are escaped in life on board ship, and the con- 

 stant leisure available for work and reading is extremely enjoy- 

 able. I felt almost sorry to leave, at Spithead, my small cabin, 

 which measured only six feet by six, and return to the more 

 complicated relations of " shore-going " life, as the sailors term 



