22 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



them with open mouth from the sea side, Silver Gulls and terns 

 kept diving down on them from above, and if they went in the 

 shallow water on the reef pelicans were there on the look- out for 

 them, consequently they had a lively time of it in trying to save 

 their lives from their various enemies both above and below. 

 Small sharks were also plentiful, and came as close to the beach 

 as the water would allow them, one I saw being only a foot away 

 from the shore, consequently we did not venture to bathe. Often 

 when a tern seized a fish and flew up with it, a Silver Gull, Larus 

 Novw-Hollandice, that had been on the watch would worry it and 

 make it drop the prey before it had time to swallow it, which the 

 gull would then catch before it reached the water, and flying to a 

 neighbouring rock eat it at its leisure. When there happened to 

 be no terns about the gull had to fish for itself, which it did by 

 either diving down from a height or swimming on the water and 

 catching the small fish that happened, unfortunately for themselves, 

 to come within reach. Numbers of Sombre and White Reef Herons, 

 Demiegretta Greyi, camped on the island, running about on the 

 ground under the bushes as well as roosting on the trees, and 

 some of their old stick nests were found built on matted vegeta- 

 tion within a foot of the ground ; the surface consequently was 

 strongly impregnated with guano, which smelt very strong after a 

 shower of rain. One morning at 4 o'clock, just before daylight, 

 I heard a company of these birds making a considerable croaking 

 noise together, but on my going to their neighbourhood they 

 stopped. 



At low tide the reef on which these islands were was left 

 exposed, and it was considerably over a mile long and nearly as 

 wide. A small solitary mangrove tree was growing about the centre 

 of it, which, in the distance, looked like a rock, and on walking 

 over this reef when dry we often noticed in the shallow pools 

 various kinds of slugs, one kind especially being purplish-black and 

 six inches to a foot long. The numerous Fringed Star Fish hide 

 their bodies in the sand and extend their feelers into the water 

 above, and I was puzzled at first, seeing these tenacles waving 

 about in the still water, to know what they belonged to. There 

 are two kinds of Beche-de-mer, but they have mostly been 

 collected by fishermen, and are consequently scarce, as this fishery 

 has been going on for many years. The slugs are half-boiled, 

 dried, and then sent to China, and a large trade used to be done 

 in them. They look like pieces of thick, dark-coloured leather 

 when ready for shipment. We saw two kinds of Sea Snakes 

 swimming on the surface of the water, Hydrophis Stokesii and 

 Hydrophis elegans. They were about 7 ft. long. Our boat- 

 man said the largest he had seen was on the Barrier Reef, and was 

 about 15 ft. long, and the thickness of an ordinary oar. We 

 had been informed by our boatman that we should bring fishing 



