that snakes are very numerous in these holes,
living upon the mutton-birds; I myself trod upon one which, fortunately,
was too sluggish to escape before I had time to shoot it, and ascertain
it to be the well-known black snake of the Australian colonists
(Acanthophis tortor) a very poisonous species. Among the seafowl, a large
gull (Larus pacificus) was exceedingly plentiful, together with a smaller
one (Xema jamesonii) and a few penguins (Spheniscus minor.) A fine flock
of wild geese (Cereopsis novae hollandiae) was seen, but they were too
wary to allow of close approach. About dusk clouds of mutton-birds came
in from the sea, and we amused ourselves with chasing them over the
ground among their burrows, and as many specimens as I required were
speedily provided by knocking them down with a stick. As usual with the
Petrel family they bite severely if incautiously handled, and disgorge a
quantity of offensive oily matter, the smell of which pervades the whole
island, a which the clothes I then wore retained for a long time
afterwards.

The party in charge of the lighthouse have numbers of goats, pigs, and
sheep, and also raise a few potatoes and other vegetables; still their
life is a hard one--more so comparatively, than that of the keepers of
the Eddystone or Bell Rock lights at home, as they communicate with Van
Diemen's Land only twice a year, and are often in want of fuel, which
they have to send for to a neighbouring island.

SWAN ISLAND.

March 4th.

Aided by the remains of a strong westerly wind, with which we at one time
logged ten and a half knots--a great feat for the old Rattlesnake,
jury-rigged as she was for surveying service, we passed through part of
Banks' Strait, and anchored off Swan Island at 9 A.M. The rock is a
fine-grained basalt, exposed only on the shore, the remainder of the
island being a series of sandhills covered with low shrubs and luxuriant
grass growing in tufts. Having left Captain Stanley's party on their way
to the lighthouse, I found on the western side of the island a long sandy
beach strewed with marine rejectamenta, among which were many new species
of zoophytes; the number and variety of sponges was very great, but
nearly all had suffered so much from exposure to the sun and weather, as
to be useless as specimens. Returning to the ship before noon, we
immediately got underweigh for Sydney.

RETURN TO SYDNEY.

March 9th.

Yesterday morning we picked up a strong South-Sou