IO 
THE TASMANIAN NATURALIST 
Hotes on a Crip to the Straits Jslands* 
By W. N. ATKINS. 
ST&HE much-talked-of trip of the A.O.U., which I had the pleasure of 
f-i accompanying, is now a thing of the past, and I am very sorry to 
say it was not the success that was expected, the weather being too 
rough to allow us to land on the islands where the best of the birds were 
breeding. 
We left Melbourne at midnight on 'Tuesday, 24th November, in the 
‘ Manawatu/ a small steamer of 112 tons, and reached the Heads at 
daylight on Wednesday, from there shaping our course to Western port k 
where we were to land a little cargo and pick up a member of the 
excursion. Called at Flinders, Cowes (where we picked up Mr. Brooke 
Nichols) and San Remo, from the latter place steering a direct course to 
King Island, where we were to pick up Mr. Baker, another member of 
our mess, and where we arrived at 1 p.m. on 'Thursday after a stormy 
passage of 17 hours. Here we were weather bound till Saturday morning, 
and we filled in the time in various ways. 
About half-a-dozen of us visited a small island in Currie Harbor, 
where the silver gulls were nesting, and our leader (Mr. Mattingley) 
obtained some good cinematograph pictures of the birds and their nests. 
As the nests were nearly all occupied by young birds very few eggs were 
taken. 
At 5 a.m. on Saturday wc got under weigh for Surprise Bay, at the 
south end of the island, where some of our party were in hopes of finding 
some bones of an extinct emu and various animals. We had great fun 
landing here, having to wade ashore through the surf and getting a good 
wetting. We stayed a few hours and got a number of bones, and after 
another wade through the surf and some excitement getting into the 
boat, we sailed for Albatross Island, which we hoped would prove to 
be our best collecting ground ; but we were doomed to disappointment 
as we could not land on account of the rough weather, although we were 
in the vicinity for several days and could see the albatrosses quite dis¬ 
tinctly, which made the disappointment keener. From here we went to 
Hummock Island to anchor for the night. 
As it was blowing too hard next morning (Sunday) for us to leave 
our shelter, we decided to put the day in ashore, so took lunch and 
landed about 9 o’clock. Mr. Mellor (South Australia) visited a couple 
of mutton bird rookeries and obtained a few eggs, but beyond this had 
no success. One of the party obtained a clutch of eggs of the sooty 
crow shrike, which were laid on a bare rock. 
On Monday morning at 9 a.m. we left for Penguin Island, where we 
expected to get among the pelicans, and eight of us succeeded in landing 
in rather a heavy surf; after Mr. Mattingley had obtained some pictures 
of the pelican rookery (which only contained eight nests) we had a good 
