OUR ISLANDS 157 



The Amblyrhynchus of Hood and its surround- 

 ing islets is not of somber, unrelieved black, as are 

 most of these marine lizards of the archipelago, but 

 is irregularly streaked with dull red in varying 

 quantities. The simile that occurred to us at the 

 time was of a neglected rusty suit of black armor; 

 a few weeks later and we would have said that the 

 lizard repeated the tones of a volcanic eruption, 

 seen in full sunlight — the old, cold lava for a back- 

 ground, trickled over by streams of molten lava. 



Along the shelving shore ran a narrow path, a 

 ledge cut in the coarse red rubble. It looked like 

 a mountain-side sheep trail, and on one of the 

 larger islands we would have supposed it to be a 

 goat thoroughfare. But when we had to climb 

 over boulders that jutted across the foot-way, since 

 there was scarcely two feet of space beneath them, 

 it was easy to see that no creatures of goat's sta- 

 ture ever wore this track. Below, the creaming 

 surf whipped round a thousand little crags and 

 promontories, where pompous pelicans watched for 

 delicacies and took off clumsily in pursuit of them. 

 Big scarlet crabs spangled the black rocks, and ver- 

 mihon-throated sand lizards scampered after in- 

 sects. The path dipped steeply and stopped at 

 a pebbly beach, shut in all round by high rock walls. 

 A tiny pool, left by the tide that had crept away 

 through some invisible crevice, was occupied by a 

 half -grown sea-hon, and a few yellow-tailed fish 

 that were too small to interest him. 



By this time we had worked round toward the 

 lofty side of the islet, so that the land side of the 



