2S A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



We often used to visit the little buccaneer bay wMch 

 the " laird " had described. It simply breathes of 

 romance, buried treasure, and " desert islands." You 

 stumble out of the hot stifling woods, tired of dodging 

 trees and spiders' webs, suddenly to find the cool clean 

 Trade-winds fanning your exceedingly hot and moist face. 

 The " white horses " are playing out at sea ; the wind soughs 

 ^mong the fringe of cocoanut palms along this weather 

 shore, and sends the spindrift flying up the sandy 

 beach like flecks of foam dashed from a charger's nostrils. 

 Occasionally a gannet comes swooping over the trees; 

 and as it passes, it turns its head in your direction and 

 then glides off over the broken water in the direction of 

 Little Swan Island, whose whole northern side, one can see 

 from here, is densely overgrown with bright green trees 

 and bushes. 



Looking straight out to sea in a due easterly direction, 

 ^bs you do from here, you realize that there is no speck 

 of land between you and Guadeloupe or Dominica in the 

 Lesser Antilles, a matter, may be, of fourteen hundred 

 miles. 



The beach is strewn with drift from the whole length of 

 the Caribbean, and the dead remains of creatures which 

 lived among the growing coral, which is gradually filling 

 up the bay. Sponges are a noticeable feature of all this 

 flotsam and jetsam. We filled our collecting bags one 

 afternoon with a dozen different kinds — some were simple 

 branched forms, others beautiful structures in the shape 

 of goblets or flower vases ; many took the forms of long, 

 parallel, hollow cylinders, rather like the pipes of an organ ; 

 others were curious hollow, tube-like structures, mere 

 skeletons of the animal which produced them, whose 

 thick walls seemed as if fashioned out of amber-coloured 

 spun-glass, arranged in a densely intricate network; 

 while a few took the form of mere flattisli mats or the 

 more familiar shape of our washing sponges. Under 

 the shade of the cocoanut palms we found a rough, 

 deserted hut, built of a framework of poles, which was 



