60 THE CRUISE OF THE ' GURAQOA.' , 



The mouse and pig ' are said to be indigenous. The cow, 

 the goat, and horse have been imported. Some twenty 

 V^ species of birds have been recognized. As respects reptiles 

 there are only lizards, geckoes,^ and the green turtle, wlaich is 

 found around the island, and whose eggs are collected in 

 great abundance by tlie natives. There are no sharks, but 

 a great abundance of fish of different species, all exceedingly 

 good with scarce a single exception. But one exception 

 we were informed there is in a little fish of a round 

 shape, and only a few inches long, which is said to differ 

 from all other known fish in having its fins and scales setting 

 towards the head instead of towards the tail ; so deadly and 

 rapid is the action of its poison, that some one, either from 

 ignorance of their venomous property, or doubts as to the 

 reality of it, having eaten one or two of them, expired 

 almost instantaneously afterwards. 



' Pigs abound, but they have the honour of being princijoally re- 

 served for public festivals. As many as seventeen hundred have been 

 killed to celebrate the opening of a chapel. — Erskine, p. 59. 



^ A genus of Saurian reptiles, having leaf-like expansions at their 

 toes, -which enable them to climb and adhere to smooth surfaces, such 

 as vvralls, ceilings, &c. The name is supposed to have been taken from 

 the j)eculiar sound it emits. 



