LETTER XIX. 



131 



it immediately after it was brought ashore. It had a remarkable 

 white mark round the neck, which, on examination, we found to 

 be a perforated clam shell, forming a necklace or collar. There 

 are great quantities of limpet and bivalve shells cast on the sandy 

 beaches, many with a hole worn through the centre by the con- 

 stant friction and tossing about by the wash of the waves. Ir 

 was probably while pursuing the 

 small flounders near 

 bottom of one of these 

 sandy bays that the 

 poor bird chanced to 

 run its head into the 

 noose. The shell had 

 worked its way down 

 to the shoulder, where 

 it seemed, from the 

 marked and frayed ap- 

 pearance of the feathers, to 

 have been a considerable time. 

 It fitted so accurately that when I 

 drew it off the head would barely go through. The bird was fat, 

 though he must have been prevented from swallowing any but very 

 small fish, for he could not distend his throat. He had probably 

 become reconciled to his misfortune, and only hunted for small 

 game. I will present you with the identical collar. I would 

 have kept the skin had it not been so cruelly mangled by a heavy 

 charge of " No. 1," fired over the rock from a grim, rusty old 

 three-foot-in-the-barrel, equally dangerous to " firer " and " firee." 



