NATATORES. 463 



" The little settlement on Vansittart's or Gun-carriage Island, 

 one of the Flindcr's Islands group in Bass's Straits, lies in a 

 cove, on one side sandy, but on the other closed in by huge 

 granite rocks, behind which the sealers have built their houses, 

 and which serve also to shelter their boats from the sea. 

 Tucker's (the chief settler's) house was comfortable enough. 

 His wife was a Hindoo woman from Calcutta, active and in- 

 dustrious, who kept it in good order. The other men had 

 native wives or * gins,' as they called them, from Australia and 

 Van Diemen's Land. 



" Their original occupation was sealing, for these islands 

 formerly swarmed with seals. In the course of time these 

 animals became exterminated, and now their principal liveli- 

 hood is derived from the Mutton-birds, which are found here 

 in incredible numbers. These birds, called also Sooty or 

 Short-tailed Petrels {Puffinus brevicaudus, Gould, B. Austr. vii. 

 pi. 56), have such long wings that, like the Albatros, the 

 largest of their tribe, they have great difficulty in rising from 

 the ground when settled ; and it is this peculiarity that makes 

 their capture so easy. They build in holes in the ground. 

 The islands which they frequent are burrowed over in all di- 

 rections, just like a rabbit-warren. They arrive in huge flocks 

 about the 21st of September, generally to the day, to prepare 

 their holes and clean them out. There is tremendous fight- 

 ing and quarrelling for these holes. When the birds have 

 arrived a few days, their tracks or pathways begin to be 

 apparent, or, as the sealers say, ' they begin to show their runs,' 

 for they go down to the sea every morning. The sealers then 

 dig a large pit in one of the main runs, with small fences on 

 each side, leading down to it like a funnel. When all is ready, 

 some morning at daybreak, when the birds come out of their 

 holes, they are driven down these runs into the pitfall. 'We 

 rushes 'em down, sir, and they all tumbles over one another 

 into the hole,' was the way the men expressed it. They 

 crowd down and fall in by hundreds, crushing and smothering 



