water, luxuriating in the glorious change to fine weather. Some 
of a provident turn of mind, were evidently making sure of a good 
fish dinner while the fine weather lasted to them ; others floated 
listlessly in the warm sun, or scanned our approaching boat with a 
lazy curiosity ; a few stood up and flapped their wings rapidly for 
a few seconds, then turned themselves over in the water, and in 
their play the whole of their identity was quickly hidden, and the 
black part of their plumage lost in a breast of white, which 
gleamed in the sun’s dancing light. Gently we glided up to the 
landing-place, so steep, so cramped and narrow, that one man could 
defend it against a host, though they carried with them St. 
Baldred himself, whose sainted body was found in three places at 
once. 
“ While one by one, three corpses lay, 
Like twin brothers transformed to clay.” 
That old anchorite was about the first man who lived on the 
Bass liock. 
But the members of our Society will be interested in hearing 
about the various naturalists who have been there. Let us 
fancy ourselves standing on the narrow platform, which I have 
described, on the 19th of August, 1061. We might have 
seeu an interesting sight — the Itev. John Kay, whose name is a 
household word to naturalists, and his pupil, or more properly 
his companion, Francis Willughby, step ashore, athirst for new 
material for that great book upon ornithology, which the latter was 
never destined to see published. These men had made a journey 
very similar to that which I was making, and in my humble way 
I felt a pride in following the footsteps of the great naturalists. 
It must have been something more than a coincidence which led 
Macgillivray and Audubon* there, on the same day of the same 
month in 183J. What a link of sympathy united the two 
friends, one a Scotchman and one an American. “ One touch of 
nature makes the whole world kin,” says Shakespeare, and if they 
did not feel it, there is no such thing as a bond of friendship. As 
naturalists it is these to whom our thoughts turn, but how 
* Among various other naturalists of note who have at different times 
visited the Bass, may be mentioned William Bullock and Arthur Strickland, 
in 1807. 
