70 Concerning South Sea Islands iv 



(and wonderfully nasty rabbits they are too) live in 

 the trees like birds ; while, on the third, the sea-birds 

 burrow underground like rabbits, and croak horribly 

 from below as you walk over their heads.' ^ 



with such an ineffably Pecksniffian expression. They know all about 

 the mysterious disappearance of the prairie puppies which worries their 

 parents so much, and the rattlesnake leers at them and they wink at 

 him. They understand each other ; but there are no trees to roost in, 

 and the frost is sharp in the winter, and they both have to keep a 

 house over their heads — somehow always a difficult matter when it is 

 somebody else's house — rent free. I wonder why there are never 

 more than two owls to a burrow ? Do the rattlesnakes take toll of 

 their young ? I know not ; but if ever I saw two rascals living on a 

 foolish, excitable, but kindly being, those two are the rattlesnake and 

 the owl. As for Gelasimns and his cursive friend, I do not think there 

 is any knavery on either side. Gelasimtis is for ever fiddling about with 

 his big claw and his little claw, wondering, possibly, whether they 

 will ever be both of one size, and allows " the man he knows by sight " 

 to bolt into his front door and out at the back without disturbing his 

 mind on the subject. The Doctor.' 



1 And this note to The Field (for 7th July 1889) was written by 

 him : — 



' Some years ago I landed on Phillip Island, one of the three com- 

 posing the Norfolk Island group, in hopes of getting a specimen of the 

 Phillip Island parrot. Alas ! though red and green parrakeets were so 

 plentiful and so tame that one could knock them on the head with the 

 ramrod, I found no Nestor produdus. (I did get a curious cuckoo, 

 but of course my usual luck followed me, and the skin never reached 

 England.) But I found that, with the exercise of a little imagination, 

 I might almost say that I had a chance of getting that beau ideal of a 

 shooter, a " rocketing rabbit." Rabbits had been introduced on the 

 island during the period of the use of Norfolk Island as a convict 

 station, and had increased and multiplied till they had made the 

 ground as bare of vegetation as a well-kept gravel walk. In con- 

 sequence, they assumed arboreal habits, and were positively living not 

 only on, but in the trees — trees, it is true, so wind-swept as to rise but 

 three or four feet above the soil, with thick stems sloping at an angle 

 of inclination which made it more of a walk than a climb up them, 



