MEDITERRANEAN NOTES 179 



"On going off to Vacca in the morning, we found 

 a great many shearwaters sitting on the water, amongst 

 which were some of the smaller species, but we found no 

 eggs of this bird. On Toro is none of the ice plant, 

 which covers the slopes in Vacca. These Eleonora 

 - falcons have a cry quite different from the peregrine 

 or kestrel, and, indeed, from the hobby — a sort of hoarse 

 chide, something like that of the true lanner (F. lanarius). 

 The shearwaters, on being caught, make a sad, moaning 

 noise, and sometimes throw up green, oily matter. I found 

 the eggs of Audouin's gull almost all hard-sat, and had to 

 make ghastly holes in some of them. The shearwaters' 

 eggs were all fresh." 



Bay of Palmas 



" May ^-jth. We ran down to about our anchorage 

 of Monday night last, a bay on the west side of the Bay 

 of Palmas, where we found a number of coral fishers, 

 Genoese and Neapolitans, who had run in there for 

 shelter from the gale. They told us they dredge the 

 coral in about fifty to sixty fathoms. The country round 

 our little bay consists of low hills, with a thick growth 

 of lentiscus and euphorbia. The white sand in the bay 

 is most beautiful, and the water wonderfully clear; 

 there is a small winter stream, now only a chain of 

 shallow pools, with tamarisks and other shrubs growing 

 about it ; some cultivation. Conversed with some native 

 goatherds, who gave us some milk fresh from the nanny- 



