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10 THE TASMANIAN' NA'I'tJiUl.lsY
notes on a CHp to tbe:Straits 3s1ands.By W, N, ATKINS,
~ ~ H E much-talked-ol trip of the A,O,V" which I had the
pleasure of'" accompanying, is now a thing of the past, and I am
very sorry tosay it was not the success that was expected, the
weather being toorough to allow us to land on the islands where the
best of the birds werebreeding .
We left Melbourne at midnight, on Tuesday, 24th November, in the
Manawatu, ' a small steamer of [12 tons, and reachell the Heads
atdaylight on Wednesday, from there shaping our course to
Wcstel'llport,where we were to land a little cargo and pick up a
member of theexcursion. Called at Flinders, Cowes (where we.picked
up J\Ir. BrookeNichols) and San Remo,.from the latter place
steering a direct course toKing Island, where we were to pick up
Mr. Baker,' another memher ofour mess, and where we arrived at [
p.m. on T h u r s d ~ y arter a stormypassage of 17 hours. Here we
were weather hound till Saturday morning,and WE filled in the time
in various ways.
About half-a-dozen of us visited a small island in ClIrrie'
I-Iarbor,where the silver gulls were nesting, and Ollr leader (Mr,
i\1auingley)obtained SOme good cinematograph pictures of the birds
and their nests.As the nests were nearly all occupied hy young
birds very few eggs weretaken.At 5 a.m. on Saturday wc got under
weigh for Sl\I'prise 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 funlanding here, having to wade ashore through the surf
and getting a goodwetting. We stayed a few hours and got a number
of bones, and afteranother wade through the surf and some
excitement getting into theboat" we sailed for Albatross Island,
which we hoped would prove tobe our hest collecting ground; but we
were doomed to disappointmentas we could not latld on account of
the rough weather, although we werein the vicinity for several
da)'s and could see the albatrosses quite distinctly, which made
the disappoiiltment keener. Front here we went toHummock Island to
anchor'l'or the night.
As it wasblowing too hard next. morning (Sunday) for us to
leaveour shelter, we decided. to . put the day in ashortl, so took
lunch andlanded about 9 o'clock. Mr. Melior' (South Australia)
visited a coupleof, mutton bird' rookeries and obtained a fe,,'
eggs, but beyond this hadno sUCcess. One of the party ohtained a
clutch of eggs of the sootycrow' shrike, .which were laid on a bare
rocl
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THE T A S ~ l A N I A N NATURALIST 11
hunt over the island,. and found a few nests of Pacific gull
just hatching.The ground. was a perfect honeycomb with nests of
mutton birds andpenguins, and every step we took we went through
almost up to ourknees.
As we were short of bread and water it was decided to run
intoDevonport to obtain these, and we arrived there at 3 a.m. on
Tuesday.At I p.m. we left for Waterhouse Islatid, where we were to
shelter for thenight, reaching there at I I p.m. and leaving again
at 4. I 5 a.m. nextmorning for Cape Barren Island; although we
started iil the calmest ofweather, we soon ran into a severe gale,
which upset most of us COIl-siderably, and after 5-} hours steam we
were very glad indeed to getinto' calm water between Cape Ban'en
and Long Island. 1\ day wasspent at the half caste settlement, and
the school children were given atreat with sweets, cakes, dates,
&c., which I am sure they will not soonforget, as we were
informed by someone on the island that the childrenwere almost
living on' shell fish (limpets) and pig face. As far as wecould
learn the male portion of the settlement is a very indolent
lot,doing practically nothing towards getting a living, excepting
the fewweeks they are muttonbirding. Our next stopping-place was
KangarooIsland, where we landed one of our party (Captain Gilkison)
and after avery short stay here left for the north of, Flinders
Island, where welanded a party for hunting, &c., who preferred
to stay there, rather Ihanface the rough trip expected on our run
to Cat Island, where we hopedto find the gannets building. The
Captain advised us strongly againstthis trip, but as we had so far
had such poor success, wc determined totry it, and after landing
sufficient provisions to last the shore partyseveral days, in case
we could not get back, left tor Cat !slanc, about 20miles down the
eastern shore of Flinders, where we arrived at 12-45 tofind the
landing perfect. We quickly got ashore, and I don't supposeany of
us had ever seen slIch a sight, thollsands of gan\lets (estimatedat
from 5000 to 7 0 0 0 ) were nesting, covering about an acre of
ground,the air also being thick with birds coming in with
provisions Here thecinematograph was again brought into operation,
and a most beautifullot of pictures obtained. We also found a
considerable number of'Pacific gulls nesting, and, of course, the
usual mutton birds and penguins. Aftel' a good ramble round this
small, island, the boat took usacross to Storehouse Island, a few
hundred yards away, where somegood pictures were obtained of a
cormorant rookery, there being threetookeries on this island, one
containing young birds, the second thefull complement of eggs, and
the' third one egg apiece in each nest; we.also found a small
rookery of ~ y h i t e - f a c e d storm petrels here We hadonly
been on board again a very short time when the storm the Captainhad
been expecting came upon us, and as we were dragging our anchor
hedecided to run somewhert: for shelter, and as it was dark we were
not toopleased until we dropped anchor some hours later, under
Babel Island,where we were fairly well protected. Next morning we
were under'way early for the shore camp, and after picking the
party up we raninto Killicrankie Bay on Flinders Island, where we
spent the remainder~ f t h e day.
