16 TURTLE. EAR-SHELLS. 



familiarity. Wild pigeons, of the ordinary blue 

 colour, are also abundant. At certain seasons 

 of the year they resort to the sea-side in large 

 flights to drink the salt water, and at any time 

 a little grain, sprinkled on the soil, brings them 

 together in sufficient numbers to afford the 

 sportsman a massacre upon an extensive scale. 



The amphibia of the jungle are lizards, and 

 many kinds of snakes, some of which are in- 

 nocuous, and others highly venomous ; of the 

 latter, rattle-snakes are particularly numerous. 

 The most valuable fish in the waters around the 

 coast is the rock-cod, which at particular 

 seasons arrives in large shoals. From amongst 

 the turtle that float to these shores, the re- 

 sidents occasionally capture the hawkVbill 

 species, (testudo caretta,) from which they pro- 

 cure some good tortoise-shell. 



On the rocks in the vicinity of the Cape we 

 find a great abundance of those elegant univalves, 

 the California- or ear-shells, Chaliotis.) The 

 fish they contain have the habits of a limpet, 

 (patella,) and are a very palatable food. 



Although the soil of this bay-settlement bears 

 from the sea a desolate and barren aspect, and 

 is, in an agricultural point of view, literally 

 sterile, yet in none of the more luxuriantly 

 wooded lands we had before visited had we 



