d1 
With the object of providing accommodation for me, Mr. Ayson 
very considerately cleared a space in the net-store, below deck ; but, 
in the absence of suitable rackwork fixtures, the liveliness of the vessel 
rendered the situation impossible and even dangerous. Accidents 
happening while attempting to convey bottles, &c., up or down an 
iron ladder, normally vertical, and resulting in broken bottles and 
scattered contents, to say nothing of bruised limbs, decided me to 
resume my occupation on deck. 
ITINERARY OF THE CRUISE. 
The vessel left Wellington on the 5th June, 1907, and on the day 
following called at Lyttelton, where I went aboard. We made a 
southerly course, but, meeting with heavy seas, anchored in Half-moon 
Bay, Stewart Island, on the evening of the 8th. Several whales were 
passed on the way, and shoals of penguins (probably Catarrhactes 
pachyrhynchus and C. chrysocome) were encountered. 
We left shelter on several occasions, returning successively to 
Port Adventure and Paterson’s Inlet, but the sea was too rough to 
permit us to do more than take soundings, and it was not until the 
llth June that the trawl was first lowered. On the 15th, when fifty 
miles east of Wreck Reef, we passed suddenly over a shelf, the sound- 
ings within two miles deepening from 65 to 183 fathoms. As the 
trawl-warps were nearly run out, we put about, and, steaming nearly 
two miles, hauled in 67 fathoms. 
We finally left Stewart Island (Paterson’s Inlet) on the 15th June 
in a snowstorm, and experienced tremendous seas to Ruapuke Is- 
land, thence to the Bluff. On the 18th a course was shaped along the 
south-east coast of the South Island, hauls being made daily to the 
22nd June, and on the 24th and 25th, on which latter date we entered 
Otago Heads. 
On the 19th June the first trial was made with the deep-sea dredge, 
twenty-four miles south-east of Long Point, in 120 fathoms (Sta- 
tion A), with satisfactory result. 
When trawling this section, numbers of mollymawks (Diomedea 
melanophrys and D. chlororhynchus) were in close attendance, feeding 
at the side of the vessel, and devouring the food thrown to them. 
They are capable of swallowing a full-sized red-cod (Physiculus bachus) 
whole. When one of the birds had the “ field” to itself it would 
pick the fish to pieces as it floated on the water, but, if another bird 
approached, the fish was quickly gulped down. On the 24th June 
the dredge was lowered twelve miles south-east of Cape Saunders, 
in 100 fathoms (Station B), and samples of the bottom obtained. 
At Dunedin Mr. Ayson sought medical advice, and as a result 
most unwillingly relinquished his active connection with the expedi- 
tion, to the regret of all on board. 
On the last day of June we left Port Chalmers, with Mr. Thomas 
Anderton, Director of the Portobello Marine Fish Hatchery, in charge, 
