96 THE ATLANTIC. [chap. ii. 



Spanish or Portuguese waters, " cavalao." The texture of the 

 fish is rather coarse, but the flavor is good ; it is allied to the 

 tunny of the Mediterranean. 



Kext day the rocks were alive with surveyors and observers 

 of all kinds, and blue-jackets fishing and scrambling, and other- 

 wise stretching their legs and enjoying a firm foundation under 

 their feet. The attention of the naturalists was chiefly directed 

 to the southern rock, which is considerably the larger. Both 

 the tern and the booby breed here. The booby lays a single 

 egg on the bare rock. There were a number of eggs and young 

 birds seen ; but, as with the tern, the principal breeding-season 

 was past. In the morning both the booby and the noddy were 

 cpiite tame, but toward afternoon even these few hours' contact 

 with humanity had rendered them more wary, and it was now 

 no longer possible to knock them down with sticks or stones. 

 We had even some little difficulty in getting a specimen or two 

 of the Sula for preservation, as we had unwisely left this to 

 the last. 



While some of the party were exploring the rock, we tried 

 once more a plan of dredging which we had adopted with some 

 success anchored on a bank at Bermudas. We sent a boat off 

 with the dredge to a distance of a quarter of a mile or so from 

 the ship — the boat taking the dredge-line from the coil in the 

 ship — let down the dredge there, and wound the dredge-rope 

 slowly on board with the donkey-engine, thus dragging the 

 dredge for a certain distance over the bottom. Life did not 

 seem very abundant, but a handsome Cidaris, a sj)ecies of A71- 

 tedon, some crustaceans of ordinary shallow - water types, and 

 some fine Gorgonim were brought up. On going over the col- 

 lections from the rock, we found them to consist of a minute 

 moth, two very small dipterous insects, a tick parasitical on the 

 birds, a species of CheJifer, and three spiders. All these species 

 had been observed previously by Mr. Darwin, with the excep- 

 tion of the Chelifer, and, in addition, a wood-louse and a beetle, 



