APRIL 1902. 



THE extremely low tides prevalent at the opening of the 

 month enabled us to extend our hunting grounds somewhat 

 further than usual, and also to reach and demolish several 

 " travellers " which the heavy seas had hurled into the boat 

 tracks, thus constituting a serious danger at relief times. 

 Quite a forest of luxuriant tangles now cover the lower lying 

 portion of the reef. Their dripping blades appear on the 

 surface, scintillating in the brilliant sunshine like so many 

 diamonds, till the receding tide permits the warm sun to rob 

 them of their freshness, their beauty vanishing in a 

 perceptible vapour, leaving them flaccid and inert till the 

 returning tide restores their pristine beauty. The badderlock 

 or henware is here also in great profusion, and usually selects 

 a position the reverse of peaceful, being generally found 

 where the wash of the seas is most constant. Of rapid 

 growth, they attain a great length, some measuring fully 

 sixteen feet ; one we had under observation was seen to 

 increase a foot in length in six weeks time. Owing to hazy 

 weather we had a number of compulsory visitors to dinner 

 yesterday. Seated outside our kitchen window was a party 

 of fog-bound travellers, consisting of a pigeon, a starling, a 

 wagtail, a robin, and a couple of wheatears. The starling 

 was sitting bunched up by himself, preserving a stolid 

 indifference at his enforced detention, and appeared to treat 

 the animated expansion and flirting of the wheatears' tails as 

 undue levity, unbecoming their sorrowful predicament. The 

 beautiful black-throated wagtail is all alertness, and the 

 slightest movement on our part sends him circling round the 

 Rock till, unable to sight the land, he is fain to regain his 

 resting place. The pigeon has been here a week now, and 



