NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 



261 



yelling. One must cross the rookeries in order to explore the island at all, and collect 

 the plants, or survey the coast from the heights. These Penguins make a nest which is 

 simply a shallow depression in the black dirt, scantily lined with a few bits of grass or 

 not lined at all. They lay two greenish white eggs about as big as duck eggs, and both 

 male and female incubate. 



After passing through the rookery, one of the small coppices already described was 

 entered. Hopping and fluttering about amongst the trees and herbage were numbers 

 of a small Finch and a Thrush, but no other land birds were seen. The Finch (Nesospiza 

 acunhce), a genus peculiar to the Tristan da Cunha group, looks very like a Green Finch, 

 and is about the same size. The Thrush (Nesocichla eremita) , a genus also peculiar to 



Fig. 102. — Head, foot, and wing of tfitospita m unhai, Cabanls. 



this group, looks like a very dark-coloured Song Thrush, but it is peculiar for its 

 remarkably strong and acutely ridged bill. The bird feeds especially on the 



Fig. 103.— Head, foot, and wing of Xesocichla eremita, Gould. 



berries of Nertera, but is also fond of picking the bones of the victims of the predatory 

 Gull (Stercorarius antarcticus). The Finch eats the fruit of the Phylica,&iid seems to 

 have become extinct in Tristan Island itself. Dr. v. Willemoes Suhm was told that the 



