206 FAUNA OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA 



covered with spines ; and the creature seems to be confined 

 to those small islands, notwithstanding the short distance 

 of the group from the mainland, for I could not find or 

 hear of such a lizard on any part of the coast I visited. 

 The animal's habits seem to be similar to those of other 

 small lizards, nothing remarkable about them being noted. 

 Some were seen to capture spiders (a species of Lycosa) and 

 another ate a beetle, but some which I took to the main- 

 land ate nothing for several weeks, and then readily took 

 some moist sugar and crumbs of bread, as well as flies, 

 which I caught for them. One or two lived for a long time, 

 only requiring food about once in six weeks. They shed 

 their skins twice a year, in March or April, and again 

 about November ; and it was during this evidently trying 

 function that most of them died. 



Rat Island was obviously named from the rodent, which 

 swarms there. It is absolutely over-run with these vermin, 

 which prey largely, if not entirely, on the molluscs and 

 crustacians which they find on the sea-shore. They have 

 the singular habit of swimming about in the quiet lagoons 

 which are found here, and in the pools among the coral- 

 rocks. 



There are some strange phenomena on some of these 

 islands. For instance, on one of the most northern, called 

 on the chart Middle Island, a spot of land which does not 

 seem to exceed half a mile in length by a quarter in 

 breadth, there is a tiny water-hole in which the water ebbs 

 and flows with the tide outside the reef, and yet it is 

 perfectly sweet, and the best water I had tasted during 

 the whole of my stay on the West Coast. As if to make 

 this circumstance the more remarkable the water obtained 

 by digging on Middle Island, or on any of the others 

 which form the group, is either quite salt, or very brackish. 



Although the islands are of coral formation, their bases 

 seem to be a kind of limestone of a light buff colour. 

 Most of them have low cliffs, only six or seven feet high, 

 on the coast-line ; but some are very low, and covered 

 with mangrove forests. From the highest points on 

 several of them the mainland is plainly visible, the atmos- 



