I.] YACHT BAY. 19 



extremely inconvenient to tlieni. Without power of grasping in 

 its foot, and with its great length of leg, few birds would seem less 

 adapted for an arboreal life than the whimbrel. But in these 

 regions, as in others, necessity has no law^s. The dense growth of 

 mangrove has here overrun the sandy beaches and oozy fiats which 

 are the favourite haunts of this genus in temperate countries, and 

 hence, in company with our Common Sandpiper and the equally 

 wide-ranoing Turnstone, both of which were also abundant in this 

 locality, no other choice of a resting-place is offered them.^ 



Beyond the lagoon the channel became so narrow as hardly 

 to admit of the passage of the launch, and finally opened out on 

 the north side of the island into what would have been, but for 

 the presence of a coral-reef completely across the entrance, a most 

 admirable harbour. We were quite prepared to have this pointed 

 out to us as the object of our search, but the Pangerang made no 

 sign, and turning eastwards, w^e pursued our course for about half 

 a mile, until we suddenly came upon it. It was as good a harbour 

 as could be desired during the south-west monsoon, well protected 

 to the east and west by reefs, and having an average depth of fifteen 

 fathoms, with a sandy bottom. That it had pre^dously escaped 

 observation was no doubt due to the fact of its being formed princi- 

 pally by the coral-reefs. 



Our discovery, although perhaps not so interesting as that of 

 the third crater-lake, was a useful one, and we devoted the re- 

 mainder of that and the whole of the following day to making a 

 sketch survey. The shore of Yacht Bay, as we named it, was 

 sandy — somewhat of a rarity on the coral and mangTove-gut coasts 

 of the island — and formed an ideal place for a picnic. Beliind us 

 the tall jungle threw a pleasant shade over the little beach, whose 

 margin was lapped by a waveless sea, its only sign of hfe the almost 

 inaudible swish with wliich it advanced or retired over the cool 

 white sand. We ate our tiffin beneath a large Barringtonia, whose 



^ The whimbrel has been said {" Ibis,"' 1879, p. 142) to build its nest in trees in 

 some parts of Celebes. The statement, however, is one which requires confirmation. 



