50 THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. 



available. We did the building and tendance ourselves, 

 and many a comfortable little dormitory we built for 

 our pets. The thing most difficult to procure was 

 wood ; for no timber grows in the islands, and in the 

 days I am speaking of, when I was a boy and our 

 pocket-money scanty in the extreme, we were often 

 put to our shifts for wood, which was very expensive. 

 But we were always on the look-out for pieces of drift- 

 wood, and not unfrequently were fortunate enough to 

 pick up after a gale in one or other of the numerous 

 little creeks — vernacularly gijos — around the coast, a 

 plank or piece of broken spar washed off the deck of 

 some passing vessel, and that was always regarded as 

 a great prize. Many a time did we scramble down 

 steep and slippery precipices of one or two hundred 

 feet to secure such a prize, and never did we pass the 

 gyos without a look for something of the kind. If our 

 eye fell on the smallest scrap of wood a few feet long, 

 and no thicker than a man's arm, tossing about in the 

 broken water, down we clambered, with a few yards 

 of fishing-line always carried on the chance of such 

 opportunities. A stone was tied to the end of this 

 line, and standing on some slippery rock with the sea 

 surging around us, cast after cast was made over the 

 miserable, bruised, and splintered, perhaps worm-eaten 

 waif, till it was brought within reach of our hands, and 

 secured. 



I well remember two of us making a grand find in 

 this way. It was a fine fresh spar, which after much 

 dexterous mancBuvring, we landed safely in the gyo. 



