296 THE CRUISE OF THE ' CUBAQOA.' 



voyage. They all seemed to be in a desperate hurry to get 

 back to Sydney. During this passage from Ysabel to 

 Eramanga, which Avas prolonged much beyond what we 

 wished or calculated, there was nothing to vary our daily 

 monotony, unless, on my part, I am to reckon as exceptions 

 the trouble and wori'y I had in taking care of my collec- 

 tions, of which I nearly lost a considerable portion by the 

 ship's heehng and rolling in rough weather, which em- 

 barrassed me wliile busy drying my plants, and also by my 

 dog's mania for lying down on my ferns after scratching 

 and tearing the paper in which they were placed to make 

 himself a comfortable bed. The poor little Megapodius on 

 board was found dead one morning, and my little turtle 

 died too. One of our middies had the misfortune to lose, 

 by a trifling accident, a [)retty little opossum, of which he 

 was very fond, and wliich he had been in the habit of 

 carrying in one of the breast pockets of his jacket. It was 

 said that the loss of his little fiivourite brought tears into his 

 eyes ; very likely, on board ship these trifling companion- 

 ships are much })rized. 



One evening a sailor caught a good sized sea bird in the 

 jib-boom where he had perched with two others. It was a 

 white and l)rown web-footed bird, with a long jjointed 

 beak, and a neck thick in proportion to the size of its 

 body ; the eyes were large with a yellow rhig round the 

 iris of each ; its upper mandible was hooked a little at the 

 point. Another day a ' man-of-war bird ' of good size was 

 caught, having fallen into the bowsprit netting. It was, I 



