HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 125 



to do so, but went stumbling and waddling about the deck 

 in a ludicrous manner, snapping their great bills with a 

 loud clack at Rover, who danced around them barking 

 furiously. After watching for some time their ungainly 

 movements, we launched them carefully overboard, where 

 they appeared to much more advantage. Some sailed off 

 in evident indignation and disgust, showing that it was 

 only ignorance that made them so bold, and that it needed 

 only a slightly-extended acquaintance with man to make 

 them as shy as the rest of their tribe ; others took their 

 places, grabbing at anything that was thrown to them. 

 Several beautiful boatswain birds, both with and without 

 the handsome swallow-like tail feathers, were flying about, 

 but, as usual, very shy ; in fact, so invariably was this the 

 case, that, although anxious to obtain a specimen, they 

 never gave us the chance of coming within gunshot. At six 

 in the evening we shoved off in the boats, and hunted till 

 ten, when we returned with one fine yellow-headed old bull 

 otter. By the time dinner was over and rifles cleaned, 

 boats on deck and everything snug, the cold north-east 

 wind had sighed away its last breath, and the hush of an 

 unbroken calm spread around us. A curious sort of blue 

 film covered the sea, deadening the bright reflected rays of 

 a gorgeous full moon, and raising the horizon till it melted 

 in the sky. Dense banks of cloudy fog flecked the moun- 

 tain sides and crept across their jagged shoulders in 

 wreaths, jostling against each other as they spread upwards 

 and downwards, till in a woolly white compact body -of 

 vapour they capped the outline of the summits in a canopy 

 of snow, and melted the black shadows of rock and ravine, 

 gorge and precipice, into an unbroken scene of wintry 

 white. Below, in strong relief, stood out the jagged coast, 

 with its abrupt cliffs thrown up in rifted pinnacles, or lofty 

 embattled walls and bastions, like some giant fortalice of 

 feudal times, and, still more to heighten the effect, a lunar 

 rainbow stretched its huge arc of coloured light. 



Thus ended the month of June, with its twenty days of 



