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CHAPTER V. 
A Visit to tlie Pratas Shoal — The Padi Bird — A Desolate Island — The 
Joss-House — Lilliputian Forest — Gannets — Rock-Basins — Odd 
Fishes— Musical Fishes— Ancient Quarries — Banks of the Tchu- 
kiang. 
My next trip was to tlie Pratas Shoal, or rather 
reef, in the China Sea. As the “ Dove ” gimboat 
was ordered to survey the reef, 1 went in her as a 
volunteer. About one hundred miles from Hong- 
Kong, a ■ padi-bird was observed on the wing, 
making futile attempts, poor thing, to get on board. 
This fact is so far interesting as tending to confirm 
the theory that, after the aquatic web-footed swim- 
mers like the gulls, the gannets, and the albatrosses, 
the wading birds form the earliest colonists of 
oceanic atolls and other far-off islets. 
When I landed on the island (which appeared to 
be merely one end of the' horseshoe-shaj)ed coral 
reef, elevated above the level of the sea, and covered 
