PREFACE. 



IN preparing the following pages for the press, I have 

 endeavoured to give a brief account, divested as much 

 as possible of technicalities, of the principal points of interest 

 in Natural History which came under observation during the 

 wanderings of a surveying ship ; while at the same time I 

 have done my utmost, at the risk of rendering the narrative 

 disconnected, to avoid trenching on ground which has been 

 rendered familiar by the writings of travellers who have visited 

 the same or similar places. And if in a few instances I have 

 given some rather dry details regarding the appearance and 

 surroundings of certain zoological specimens, it has been my 

 intention, by an occasional reference to the more striking forms 

 of life met with in each locality, to afford some assistance to those 

 amateurs who, like myself, may desire to avail themselves of the 

 opportunities afforded by the surveying ships of the British Navy 

 for performing, although with rude appliances and very few books 

 of reference, some useful and interesting work. 



Large collections of zoological specimens were made, and as 

 these accumulated on board, they were from time to time sent 



