520 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



The captain assured us tlu\t tlicy were often packed far closer 

 than we saw them, and then there were fewer in the water. 



The penguin gets out of the water in a heavy sea with 

 great ease. It dives towards a sloping face of rock ; then the 

 sea carries it on as it swims under v»-ater high up towards it. 

 It bounds hke a lish upwards just as the sea is retreating, and 

 lauds llat-footed on the face of the rock. Long before another 

 wave washes up it makes two or three vigorous jumps aud is 

 out of its reach. A land-animal would get smashed to atoms 

 in the process. I shall never forget the quaint and beautiful 

 sight presented by the rows of penguins as we passed slowly 

 along the face of this desolate rock. We were now to wind- 

 wa.rd, and the stench had vanished. The rocks are hard, 

 coarse granite, and, as the penguins wholly desert them in 

 winter, the rains wash them quite clean. There is not a blade 

 of vegetation upon them ; not a green thing, save the Plenro- 

 cocciis, or green mould, which smeared the rocky walls here 

 and there. The islands derive their name from the ship in 

 which the brave and tyrannical Bligh sailed when he dis- 

 covered them in 1788. We now started for home again. I 

 understand it was originally the intention of our Government 

 to annex Macquarie Island, further south than Campbell 

 Island, but, finding that it was included in the Commission of 

 the Governor of Tasmania, this could not be done. It is to be 

 hoped that this wall ultimately be arranged, as the island can 

 be of no use to Tasmania — from which it is far distant — and 

 its exclusion from New Zealand leaves us exposed to the 

 depredations of seal-poachers. This island is the resort of sea- 

 elephant hunters from New Zealand, and I am sorry to say 

 that these have not always respected our laws for the protec- 

 tion of fur-se?Js. Professor Scott and Mr. (now Dr.) Eeginald 

 Strode visited it some years ago, and the former wrote an in- 

 teresting account of his fortnight's stay there." 



There is said to be another island farther south called 

 Emerald Island. All that is definitely said of it in authentic 

 books is that the ship " Emerald," in December, 1821, in lat. 

 57° 30' S., long. 162" 12' E., saw the resemblance of an island, 

 very high, with peaked mountains. A gentleman living at Port 

 Chalmers tells me that a sea-captain told him that he had seen 

 it and had been round it. but could see no place for landing. 

 It was a small, high, rocky island. This, however, has not been 

 reported to navigators in these seas. Some maps and gazetteers 

 now omit it. Commodore Wilkes sailed over the site of it in 

 the " Vincennes," and, separately, his vessel, the "Porpoise," 

 did the same. As the position was uncertain, and the weather 

 thick, there is still a possibility of its being found, but it may 



* Tran-sactions, vol. xv., p. 484. 



