50 CAPE VERnE. 



{Halcyon erythrogastra) is common. The bird is peculiar to 

 the island, though very closely allied to an African species. 

 It is a beautiful bird of a brilliant blue and white with a red 

 beak. Like many other kingfishers it is not aquatic in its habits, 

 but feeds mainly on locusts and other small terrestrial animals. 

 It has a terribly harsh laughing cry, a feeble imitation of that of 

 its congener of Australia, the laughing jackass. 



We met with several flocks of wild gallinis, which are abun- 

 dant on the island, but are very difficult to approach. The 

 birds inhabit the slopes of the gorges, which are covered with 

 a thick growth of oil trees {Jatropha curcas), which have very 

 much the habit and general appearance of castor-oil plants. 

 The flocks of gallinis station sentries to keep a look-out from 

 some rocky eminence, and these, when once they have dis- 

 covered an enemy, never lose sight of him, but carefully watch 

 the stalking operations of a sportsman and give warning as soon 

 as he gets too near to their comrades and is just expecting to 

 get a shot. 



We returned to the town in the afternoon in order to join a 

 seining party. All English men-of-war on foreign service are 

 provided with a seine net, and a seining party is regarded as a 

 sort of lark or picnic by the Blue-jackets. There are always 

 plenty of volunteers eager to go, and a good many officers 

 are ready to join. 



With us, Mr. Cox, the boatswain, was the great man on such 

 occasions, and he enjoyed the sport as much as any one in the 

 ship. The party of volunteers, of perhaps thirty men besides 

 the officers, goes ashore in the afternoon at about four o'clock 

 in one of the cutters with the net in the dingey, the smallest 

 ship's boat. Then the net is payed out, and every one is dressed 

 and prepared for going into the water up to his neck and 

 hauling on the lines. At last in comes the bag of the net, or 

 " cod " as Mr. Cox calls it. It is run up the beach with a final 

 spurt, and then comes the fun of handing out the fish and 

 looking at the many unfamiliar forms, for which the Blue-jackets 

 have all sorts of extraordinary names. 



At one haul on the present occasion there was a large shark 

 {Carcharias sp.), 14 feet long in the net. Mr. Cox in the 

 dingey following the net as usual as it was drawn in, in order 

 to free it if it should hitch on the bottom, sighted the shark 

 swimming round within the rapidly decreasing circle, and 

 making bolts at the net to try and break through. And the 

 beast would have burst through had not Mr. Cox hammered it 

 on the head with a boat-hook whenever it turned at the net, 

 whilst the men belaboured it with anything they could get hold 

 of as it got drawn into shallow water. 



