516 Tranmciions. — Miscellaneous. 



landing is at a rocky recess amid the smell and noise of penguins 

 in a small rookery hard by. The depot was in good order, and 

 two out of the three cattle left there looked well ; the third was 

 missing. The sheep were not seen, but recent traces of them 

 were found. The cattle had begun to make tracks through 

 the heavy tussock at the landing, and had eaten freely of the 

 great rhizomes of the Stilhocarpa and the leaves of a large 

 nettle. These plants and Ligusticum antipodum were com- 

 mon Jiere, but the fine floweriiig-plants of the other islands 

 were reduced to one species of Plcuroijhijlluvi. We started to 

 walk through the island, and found the work very difficult. 

 The high tussock and a fern (Lomaria capensis) covered very 

 treacherous ground. Mountains rise on two sides of a sort of 

 plain or basin. We crossed this, and made for Mount Gallo- 

 way, 1,300ft. by the aneroid. As we approached it we found 

 its sides scarred by slips and deeply cut by water -worn 

 ravines. Here grew quantities of Coprosma scrub, the only 

 shrub on the island. It was in fruit, and on the fruit were 

 feeding two kinds of parrakeet unknown in New Zealand. I 

 found it very diflicult to see them, so completely did they 

 match the colour of the scrub, but I got several for the 

 museum. When I fired a shot they screamed all round, but 

 remained invisible. At times they came close round me, so 

 close that I could not fire without knocking them to pieces. 

 I carried a small walking-stick gun with small shot. I 

 found this gun more destructive than I had found a fowling- 

 piece with large shot in the Sounds, when I procured some 

 small birds now in the museum ; indeed, my gun was so 

 deadly that at Port Eoss I killed shags with it easily. These 

 parrakeets have acquired the habit of keeping low down and 

 seldom flying, as to fly on so small an island would expose 

 them to the danger of being blown away to sea. Near the 

 head of the stream which flows down the mountain we found 

 a fine large plot of beautiful Sphagnum moss, W'hich could be 

 seen as a patch on the mountam-side from the ship, two miles 

 off. We failed to get a view from the mountain, as there was 

 a dense fog up there. The summit was clear ground, matted 

 with Plcurophylltrin and low-growing Ligusticum. Owing to 

 a fog we failed to see a clear lake said to exist there. There 

 was a good deal of flat ground up there, which was literally 

 ctlive with albatroses. Young, black, birds were very common; 

 often their breasts were covered with down, and this was 

 matted with piripiri (Accsna adscomlens) seeds. The albatroses 

 were building nests everywhere, and numbers of them were 

 billing and cooing and gathered in large flocks as at Adam's 

 Island. They took little notice of us as we walked among 

 them, only clapping their beaks when we went right up to 

 .them. They went on with their nest -building and their 



