A FORLORN QUEST, ETC. 243 



to strike just at the right moment, but when 

 actually hooked on the light cane and tight line, 

 it gives great play until lifted out on the rocks. 

 In addition to sargo, we caught a number of sea- 

 scorpions and wrasse, which was just as satisfac- 

 tory as catching leather j acket when after grouper. 

 Indeed, the remembrance of those Australian 

 days was intensified by the rock-climbing which 

 we had to do in order to reach the best pools. 

 Then, when the sun had gone down behind Porto 

 Santo, we clambered back to camp. Swifts 

 screamed against the blue sky, but the terns had 

 gone to roost. A desultory chatter was kept 

 up in a kestrel's nest just above our camp, where 

 the parents were rearing a greedy brood, but the 

 only other birds in evidence so late in the day 

 were Bulwer's Petrel, which flew barking among 

 the cliffs, and nervous shearwaters, which, we 

 afterwards discovered, had a single chick in a nest 

 under one of the biggest boulders beside our camp. 

 No harm, however, came to the nestling from our 

 visit, and even in that short time the parents 

 seemed to appreciate that all was well. There 

 were many other birds on our island : turnstones, 

 gulls, meadow-pipits on the plain up by the light- 

 house, rock-pigeons and one or two others. The 

 rest of the land-fauna consisted mainly of the 

 aforesaid spiders and lizards, the latter swarming 

 among the rocks and seeming equally at home 



