406 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the * Pedro's ' whistle until the whole harbour was aroused. The 

 ' Pedro ' was said to do seven or eight knots, and so we left the 

 mole of La Luz, expecting, with ordinary luck, to anchor off the 

 Great Salvage early on the following afternoon. We were no 

 sooner outside the breakwater, although still sheltered by the 

 land, than we became acutely conscious of the large size of the 

 Atlantic rollers and of the relatively smaller dimensions of our 

 * Pedro,' to whose credit be it said, as she proved from first to 

 last a safe and excellent sea-boat. She was built of steel, about 

 40 ft. long, and of a nature so inherently buoyant that in her 

 frantic efforts to surmount the waves she seemed, at times to be in 

 imminent danger of turning herself inside out. This made repose 

 on deck out of the question, there being no room to lie down. Below 

 the only accommodation consisted of the hold, the forward end of 

 which was fitted with four wooden bunks. Into some of the 

 vacant space we had stowed our camping and collecting gear, and 

 what remained was used as a resting-place by our crew. The 

 hatchway and wooden skylights being shut down and a tarpaulin 

 made fast over them to prevent the ingress of salt water, it may 

 be imagined that during the night, when all but the watch had 

 turned in and there were several pipes going, the quarters were 

 what sailors call snug. 



The next morning broke cloudy with a trifle more east in the 

 wind, which enabled us to set our little fore-and-aft sail. The 

 men were in high spirits, climbing with their almost prehensile 

 feet up the two wire stays that formed the ' Pedro's ' standing 

 rigging, and pointing out, as a sure sign that land was near, a 

 Pardella, the " bird that sleeps on shore." Of this bird, the 

 Mediterranean Shearwater (Puffinus kulili), we had already made 

 the acquaintance at Porto Santo, and were destined to see a good 

 deal of before we got home. 



In the course of conversation, somewhat laboriously carried 

 on, it transpired that our men considered the distance from Las 

 Palmas to the Salvages to be about ninety miles. The chart, as 

 we happened to know, though there was no such document on 

 board, made it 123 miles, and it soon became evident that there 

 was a great deal of uncertainty about our position, and that our 

 voyage to the Salvages was developing into a search for those 

 islands — a search which might very easily be unattended with 

 success. There was a sailing vessel in sight well down to 



