DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPEDITION. 125 
was a half-caste Creole, and the station was of the poorest description, none of the men 
having brought their wives or desiring to make it their home. An attempt was being 
made to cultivate a few gourds and marrows, but the soil was evidently of the most 
inhospitable description, bois manioe (Scevola) and balais (Lrythroxrylon) alone 
flourishing. A few cocos were coming up, and there was a small grove of Casuarinas, 
a tree which seems capable of withstanding almost any conditions of drought and 
salinity. Animals of all sorts were scarce, save only such as feed on decaying fish; a 
few rabbits, however, had run wild, and were somehow managing to eke out an 
existence on the coarse herbage. Fish seemed to be extraordinarily plentiful, a boat 
with four men often bringing back three to four ewts. in a day. As the pay with 
rations of each man is only about half a rupee a day, and as the fish sells, when dried, 
at the same price per pound, it must be a profitable business. It is all exported to 
Mauritius, communication being kept up by a small schooner, which sails simply 
between the group and that island. 
We remained for three days at Establishment Island. On Monday, Aug. 28, Cooper 
dredged in the Sealark, while Fletcher and Gardiner collected on the land and examined 
the reefs. Siren Island, which was visited in company with Captain Somerville and 
others, and the two Bird Islands presented an extraordinary appearance. Language is 
too restricted to give any idea of the vast number of birds which inhabit them. As we 
got away from the ship, frigate-birds soared overhead, sometimes swooping down 
almost within reach. Approaching the islands curlews and whimbrel flew out with 
shrill cries, but the small flocks of little plover (Zo/anus fuscus) and sandpipers feeding 
at the water’s edge seemed reluctant to give up their meal until within gunshot, 
then too late. Passing over the wave-raised ridge, which bounds a central plateau on all 
the islands, we saw the ground before us literally speckled with the black-and-white 
tern (Sterna fuliginosa), each hatching a single egg within a foot of its neighbours. 
As we picked our way through the eggs, the sun’s rays were almost hidden by the vast 
concourse of birds above, passing within a hand’s reach of our heads, and often striking 
down at our helmets, while their raucous cries forced us to shout at the top of our voices 
if we wanted to be heard. Here and there are clumps of low bush (Zrythroxylon or 
Tournefortia) matted together by the liane sans fin (Cassytha filiformis), a plant peculiar 
in its absence of leaves, the cells of its thin green stems being the actual starch- 
producing organs. Their matted surfaces are pressed down where the grey-headed terns 
(Anous leucocapillus) sit likewise on single eggs, close enough to interchange their secrets. 
Outside all, actually on the surrounding ridge, were a few white terns (Gygis candida), 
their eggs being generally placed on the tops of the larger coral stones. Siren Island was 
saucer-like and had Gygis on the rim which was thrown up for about 12 feet above the 
tide, Anous on a broad circlet of bush within, and then a still broader band, in places a 
hundred yards or so across, of Sterna. The centre was a bare flat, perhaps 8 feet lower 
than the rim, at that time of the year bare of vegetation and beaten down to a smooth 
surface by multitudes of young chicks: so numerous were they that it seemed that 
there must be at least two layings, of which we had found the second (PI. 16). 
Collecting on such islands was a peculiarly unsavoury task. The ground was coral 
