SEALS. 
225 
Japanese, is situated on the nortli side of the west 
entrance to La Perouse Strait. It is a huge mass 
of hare trachyte, a steep weather-stained rock rising 
1500 feet abruptly from the sea, tfnd with some 
detached rocks on its eastern side. As we ap- 
proached it, we saw. a species of great brown gull, 
greedy for fish bones and offal, hovering round the 
base ■ a lonely cormorant, with o.utstretched neck, 
diying her expanded wings on the salient angle of 
a black* crag ; and a little hawk soaring high above 
the summit. These are the only birds that frecpient 
the island ; oysters, mussels, and limpets are the 
only mollusks on its shore; and a carrion-beetle, 
a large black Silpha, is the only insect met with. 
There are, however, numerous seals. Many of 
these were swimming and diving around the island, 
their uncouth reddish brown heads showing now and 
then above the surface of the water. Others were 
baskino; in the sun, motionless on the broad smooth 
rocks, the remnants of their fish dinners strewn 
about them. The bones of some which had died 
from old age or wounds were bleaching in the wind. 
Q 
