294 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



enjoyed, until sunset, when the fish suddenly left off biting. 

 More than a hundred were obtained, varying in weight from ten 

 to fifteen pounds each, and sufficient to serve for three or four 

 good meals for the whole ship's company. They deserved 

 their vernacular name by the eagerness with which they attacked 

 the bait, and when hauled on board made a slight grunting noise, 

 and emitted a peculiar and rather agreeable smell, somewhat 

 like that of our English Smelt, only not so pronounced. The 

 back-fins of numerous small Sharks could be seen above the 

 surface of the water, and I noticed an enormous Turtle floating 

 fast asleep just before the ship anchored. 



We were to have resumed our voyage at sunrise the next 

 morning, but the breeze was still very strong from the south- 

 ward, and we remained at anchor. Early in the forenoon a boat 

 was sent on shore to procure some sand, and I was by no means 

 slow to avail myself of the opportunity of landing on this out-of- 

 the-way island. The beach, on which there was little or no surf, 

 was composed of fine yellow sand, broken at low-water mark by 

 ledges of dead coral ; and the first thing which struck me on com- 

 mencing to ascend the cliffs — which were not particularly steep, 

 but fatiguing to climb under the blazing Australian sun, owing 

 to the deep loose sand which covered the slopes — was the much 

 greater variety and the totally different character of the vegeta- 

 tion from what I had met with all along the coast to the north- 

 ward and eastward as far as Port Darwin. I had evidently come 

 within the boundary of the rich, varied, and most peculiar flora 

 of South -We stern Australia. Not, indeed, that there was any 

 very great luxuriance, even the Eucalypti and Acacias, of which 

 there were several species, being mere bushes not exceeding six 

 or seven feet in height. Large clumps of a bright yellow "ever- 

 lasting," diffusing a pleasant aromatic scent, grew at the base 

 of the cliffs; and on their summits the general character of 

 the vegetation was somewhat like that of an English heath, or 

 still more like the varied growth on the open treeless waste lands 

 in the south of Spain near Gibraltar, but almost every plant 

 was entirely strange to me. Of animal life there was very little ; 

 I saw one Kangaroo-rat, a creature about the size of a Rabbit, and 

 a few small Lizards. In places somewhat sheltered from the 

 breeze two or three species of blue butterflies were flitting about 



