448 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



at Port Gallant. Attached to it were some fine specimens of 

 a parasitic Isopod, the Pterelas magnificiis. In the evening 

 Captain Sparkes, with his first mate, came on board, and spent 

 some hours with us, giving us much information in a very 

 pleasant frank manner, alike regarding Province Town and 

 his own affairs. Next morning we weighed after breakfast, 

 and proceeded northwards to Victory Pass to pick up the two 

 boats left there a few days previously, parting company with 

 our American friends, after towing them for a short distance 

 on their northerly course, and then returned southwards, 

 anchoring in the evening among the Otter Islands, which did 

 not appear so dismal as at the time of our first visit to them 

 in March, owing to the improved weather. 



The 19th was a showery day. The dredge in the morn- 

 ing yielded some fine specimens of a bivalve, of the genus 

 Yoldia, possessed of a large foot, apparently designed for 

 burrowing in the fine mud of the bottom. Two of the officers, 

 with myself, left the ship early, and spent the day cruising 

 about among the numerous rocks and islands. Some oyster- 

 catchers, a kingfisher, and a male and female of the common 

 brown duck of the Strait, were shot, and on the beds of kelp 

 we found a variety of Mollusca and Crustacea ; one of the 

 latter, now seen for the first time in abundance, being a 

 curious Isopod, the Cassidina emarginata,^ of which I after- 

 wards found the British Museum possessed a single poor 

 specimen from the Falkland Islands. They swam very rapidly 

 on their boat-shaped backs among the fronds of the weed, on 

 which they also crawled with considerable rapidity. On one 

 of the small islands I noticed some large plants of Veronica 

 decussata coming into flower. We tried fishing, but with very 

 poor results, and returned to the ship at about five P.M. One 



* Figured at p. 75. 



