A VISIT TO THE CLAREMONT ISLANDS. 453 
the smaller fishes. I believe that at the close of the Ex- 
hibition these birds were bought by the Prince of Wales.* 
M. Maurice Girard: There was an Inspector of Forests, 
I think, who interested himself very much about this mode of 
fishing, and I am not sure whether he did not make some com- 
munication on the subject to the Société d’Acclimatation. 
M. Pichot: Yes, that was M. Delarue, formerly Inspector of 
Royal Forests, and it was with John Barr and with me that 
he learned to train his first birds. 
M. Maurice Girard: I was under the impression that we had 
in our ‘ Bulletin’ some notes from M. Delarue on the subject. 
A VISIT TO THE CLAREMONT ISLANDS. 
By Gervasz F, Maruev, R.N., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 
At three o’clock on the afternoon of the 12th of April, 1885, 
H.M.S. ‘ Espiégle’ anchored off No. 5 (on the Admiralty Chart) 
of a group of small islands, called the Claremont Islands, lying 
inside the Great Barrier Reef, between Cooktown and Cape 
York, and in latitude 13° 42'S. This group consists of eight 
principal islands, with a few islets, No. 1 being the farthest to 
the south in latitude 13° 57’ S., and just off Point Claremont, 
while No. 8, the farthest north, is in latitude 13° 16’ S., so that 
they extend for some forty-one miles from north to south. They 
are low flat islands, more or less covered with scrubby brushwood, 
and with a few trees in the centre, aud some of them are fringed 
with a belt of mangrove bushes. At the time of our visit these 
islands were looking beautifully green. 
No. 5, having no name, we will call ‘‘ Espiégle Island.” It is 
one of the smallest of the group, being little more than one and 
a half or two miles in circumference, and is covered with high 
grass, with patches of low bushes and a few trees at one corner 
of it. A sloping sandy beach runs round the greater part of it, 
* This is a mistake: the Cormorants referred to, in the Chinese Court, 
were stuffed, and perched, some eight or ten in number, on the gunwale of a 
Chinese fishing-boat. A single live bird, however, belonging to Capt. 
F. H. Salvin took fish daily in one of the basins in the Exhibition grounds, 
—EpD,. 
