NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
787 
would have been very difficult to walk along without becoming giddy. It was as if one 
were walking along the top of an immensely high wall. 
Here and there small Metrosideros trees grew upon the centre of the crest of the 
ridge, and when these were encountered it was necessary to climb between the branches, 
often where they overhung a sheer drop below, and once to swing along the steep side of 
the crest for a short distance past one of these trees under its overhanging branches. 
The crest of the ridge was ascended until an altitude of 4000 feet was reached, 
when the guides found the way barred by a precipice and entirely impracticable. The 
summit of the ridge was covered with a thick growth of the Fern ( Gleiclienia dichotoma) 
and a Climbing Fern (Lyg odium), and amongst the bushes on the ridge a Whortleberry 
( Vaccinium) was very abundant, and also two species of Metrosideros. The entire 
vegetation was different from that below. .One of the species of Metrosideros was, how- 
ever, also seen growing much lower down. 
Just as the ridge met the face of the mountain, by which the party was brought to 
a halt, its crest widened out, and here there was a damp hollow with mosses and lichens 
growing in it in great abundance. Here also grew a tree (Fitchia nutans), 20 feet in 
height, and with a trunk 9 inches in diameter, belonging to the Composite, with a 
large yellow flower. It is allied to the Composite trees of Juan Fernandez and nearly 
related to the Chicory. 
Here in the soft loose soil, amongst the moss, were numerous burrows of a Petrel 
( Procellaria rostrata). The natives call it the “Night Bird,” just as the inhabitants 
of Tristan da Cunha call the Burrowing Petrels there “ Night Birds.” The Tropic Birds 
also nest far up in the mountains, and in Hawaii they nest in the cliffs of the crater of 
Kilauea at an altitude of 4000 feet. Similarly a Puffin (Puffinus nugax) nests at the 
top of the Korovasa Basaga Mountain, in Viti Levu Island, Fiji, 1 and in like manner, a' 
Procellaria breeds in the high mountains in Jamaica. 
It seems possible that these birds may carry Alpine plants as seeds and spores 
attached to their feathers from one island to another, for great distances. They make 
their holes in the ground where it is densely covered with herbage, and often become 
covered with vegetable mould. The Procellaridse, widely wandering as they are, have 
probably had a great deal to do with the wide distribution of much of the Antarctic 
flora. Grisebach 2 3 lays stress on the range of the Albatross ( Diomedect ) from Cape Horn 
to the Kurile Islands, as possibly accounting for the occurrence of northern species of 
plants amongst the southern flora, and also the wide range of the Antarctic flora. He 
supposes the seeds, however, to be swallowed by the Albatross, with its food, after being 
washed down into the sea by rivers, and perhaps swallowed by fish. 
1 Finsch u. Hartlaub, Ornithologie der Viti, Samoa und Tonga Inseln ; Einleitung, p. xviii., Halle, 1867. 
Peale describes the habit in question of Procellaria rostrata at Tahiti. 
3 A Grisebach, Vegetation der Erde, Bd. ii. p. 496. 
