148 Natural History of Pratas Island. [April, 



plank walls very shaky, so that the rain and weather had left their 

 visible traces also upon the contents and i'nrnitnre. In this rough 

 building were 30 or 40 josses, or wooden idols, of various sizes, 

 once resplendent in paint and gilding, but now faded and weather- 

 worn. They were arranged symmetrically upon a sort of altar, 

 and upon the tables before them were bundles of joss-sticks, packets 

 of joss-papers, rouleaux of paper dollars, lucky stones, gongs, tom- 

 toms, while around the building were grotesque wood carvings, 

 procession staves, and all the paraphernalia of the Chinese devil- 

 propitiators. "We soon found, however, that they must be handled 

 with caution — they were rotting with damp and decay, and har- 

 boured numbers of small scorpions, white ants, and ugly-looking 

 spiders, which commanded a certain amount of respect from their 

 malignant and venomous appearance. The blue-jackets especially, 

 with their bare feet, were very shy of walking about in a spot 

 where scorpions had their habitation, but fortunately no one 

 suffered from then stinccs. Anions other offerings to Joss, were 

 a number of large model-ships, representing three-deckers, and 

 made of paper stretched upon frames of wood, now much torn and 

 dilapidated, but which showed plainly the piratical tendencies of 

 the frequenters of the temple, and their desire that Joss should 

 cast some barbarian ships upon the shore for them to plunder. As 

 far as we could judge, however, from, the condition of the place, 

 it must have been three or four months since anyone had visited 

 the island. 



A slope of long, rank grass led down from the joss-house to the 

 shores of the shallow inlet, upon which, and in the water, were 

 strewed immense numbers of dead shells of Cerithium, some few of 

 which were inhabited by hermit crabs. From observations made 

 at the island upon the tide, it appeared that during the day of 

 full moon it was high water at 8 a.m.. and ebbed until 3 . 15 p.m., 

 by which time it had fallen 3 feet. It was not surprising, there- 

 fore, that some of these deserted shells were high and dry, but this 

 would hardly account for the fact that, considerably above highr- 

 water mark, many lay half-embedded in the dried mud and thick 

 connrmed growth which had long lain above high-water mark, and 

 bore the signs of having been well baked and cracked by many 

 a noonday sun. The banks of the lagoon had evidently been 

 under water comparatively recently, and much higher up than the 

 tide now reached. 



But although some classes of animals were poorly represented 

 upon Pratas Island, there were plenty of birds, and of several 

 species, both sea and land birds. A buzzard I noticed several 

 times, but it was too wary to allow me to come within gunshot, 

 although it offered a tantalizing mark just out of range. I 

 observed a very handsome shrike, with an ash-coloured head and 



