May, 1908.] THE VlCtORIAN NATtJRALlST. 13 



Lady Julia Percy Island like a faint speck on the eastern 

 horizon. 



As we approached the rock it was noticed that it was divided 

 into two parts by a narrow passage of surging water. On the 

 smaller section hundreds of Cormorants, Phalacrocorax gouldi, 

 were seen sitting on their columnar-shaped nests, and when we 

 passed close to them the brooding birds waddled off their eggs 

 and lined up on the edge of the rocks like a regiment of soldiers, 

 and were re.^dy for instant flight should their leader indicate that 

 it was too dangerous to remain any longer. Sailing further on, 

 our boatmen stopped the oil engine, lowered the sails, and deftly 

 throwing out the anchor on to a little patch of good holding 

 ground, made fast close by the brown kelp-clad edge of the reef. 

 My impedimenta having been safely stowed in the dinghy, we 

 pulled for the reef. This dinghy had been specially built with 

 high smooth sides, and with great beam, for rowing through the 

 broken waters of the surf, in which these hardy and bold fisher- 

 folk, in all weathers, attend ta their crayfish pots, sunk in the 

 holes of the submerged reefs. As we approached the edge of the 

 reef many fish were disturbed, and swam hurriedly into the 

 masses of kelp with which the rocks are lined, and which 

 continuously flagellates them as the waves in their onward rush 

 wash them first upwards against the reef then downwards as they 

 recede from it. Now we are but a cable's length from the jagged 

 and savage-looking rocks, and the fishermen forthwith heave over 

 a kedge anchor and row through the joggling water, paying out a 

 stout line as they go. When the prow of the boat is within a 

 foot of the rocks the cable is made fast to prevent the boat 

 bumping, and out some of us spring on to the reef. The 

 packages are then thrown ashore, where they are caught and 

 carried through about a foot of white surf that sweeps across the 

 rocky platform to the higher ground. 



After the luggage has been stowed above high water level, we 

 set out to explore, and as we ascend the first land mass the 

 nesting burrows of several Fairy Penguins, Eicdyptula mmor, 

 those grotesque flightless birds, were seen. One burrow con- 

 tained three white eggs, some others two eggs, all heavily 

 incubated and besmeared with dirt, whilst higher up the rock, 

 amongst the pig-face weed, where there was more earth, most of 

 the penguins' burrows contained two little young ones, which 

 were clothed in a dark velvety fur, or rather down, which is not 

 far removed from the fur of animals. In fact, penguins are a 

 curious mixture of bird, animal, and fish, having some of the 

 characteristics of all three forms, and as such are noteworthy 

 examples of the process of evolution from their presumed reptilian 

 ancestors. Other burrows contained two or three adult birds, 

 some of which were moulting. Penguins, when interfered with, 



