NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 299 



Near this rookery was a shallow freshwater lake, on which some young Albatrosses 

 were swimming. There were numerous White Albatross's nests scattered about, but they 

 did not extend more than 100 feet above sea level, and hardly anywhere as high 

 up as that. High up, at about 500 feet elevation, were some four or five Sooty 

 Albatrosses (Diomedea \_Phcebetrici\fuliginosa, the " Piew " or " Pio " of sealers), soaring 

 about the tops of the cliffs ; probably they nest there. This bird is continually to be 

 seen flying about cliffs and higher mountain slopes, and never seems to nest low down 

 like the Mollymauk and Goney. 



In holes in the banks at this elevation, a Prion [Prion banksi) was extremely abundant, 

 but it was also pretty common down about sea level. Its peculiar angry cry, somewhat 

 like the snarling of a puppy, uttered as it hears footsteps about its hole, is very puzzling 

 at first as listened to coming up from the ground at one's feet. 



The rocks, about high-Water mark, are covered with a dense growth of the large brown 

 seaweed (Durvillea utilis), which is of great assistance in breaking the surf. The plant 

 has stout stems, as thick as the wrist, attached to the rock by large conical boss-like 

 suckers, and with large spreading leaves on the stalks, provided with floats composed 

 of a series of honeycomb-like air-cells within a thickened frond. Beyond the ordinary 

 reach of the sea, but still within the beach-line, the rocks are covered with a Crassulaceous 

 plant (Tillcea moschata), which occurs also in Kerguelen Island. Above the beach 

 is a thick growth of herbage investing a swampy black peaty soil, which covers the 

 underlying rock more or less thickly everywhere on the lower ground, and extends up 

 with the herbage almost to the snow. The principal plants forming the thick growth 

 are Acarna adscendens, by far the most abundant plant on the island, Azorella selago, 

 forming bright green patches in intervals between the Accena or cake-like masses at 

 its roots, and a grass Poa cookii. Azorella selago is a characteristic plant of the 

 southern islands, and will be frequently referred to in the sequel (see PI. XV.). 

 It belongs to the Unibelliferse, and forms large convex masses often several feet 

 in diameter, which are compact and firm, and when on solid ground yield little 

 to the tread. The masses are made up of the stems and shoots of the plants closely 

 packed together side by side, with their flowering tips and small stiff' and tough 

 leaves forming an even rounded surface at the exterior, being all of the same length ; 

 the interior of the masses is full of dead leaves and stems. The whole, where growing 

 in abundance, formed sheets and hummocks which invest the soil, sometimes for acres in 

 extent at Kerguelen Island, with a continuous elastic green coating. An allied plant, 

 Bolax glebaria, forms similar masses at the Falkland Islands, and there is a tendency in 

 many Antarctic plants to assume a similar habit, as in the case, e.g., of Lyallia kergue- 

 lensis. 



Pr'uujlea antlscorbutiea (see PI. XVI.), the Kerguelen Cabbage, is, at least in the part 

 of the island explored, by no means so abundant as at Kerguelen Island. It was some 



