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Updated: June 3, 2025
A good lunch was taken ashore, and we looked more like a gunroom picnic party than a scientific expedition when we left the ship in flannels and all manner of weird costumes. Wilson, Pennell, and Cherry-Garrard shot a number of birds, mostly terns and gannets, and climbed practically to the top of the island, where they could see the Martin Vaz islets on the horizon.
A young savage as captain, a tame seal as boatswain, and a flock of gannets as sailors, certainly made up as curious a set of adventurers as ever floated upon the wide ocean." I was not the least remarkable of the strange group, for I had nothing on but a pair of duck trousers, patched in several places; and my hair, which had grown very long, hung in black wavy masses to my shoulders.
My disappointment was shared by Nero, who seemed to regard my vexation with a sympathising glance, and even the gannets turned their dull stupid gaze upon me, with an expression as if they deeply commiserated my distress.
I had built a sort of outhouse for storing potatoes and firewood, and a fowl-house for the gannets, which were now a numerous flock; and had planted a fence round the garden, so that, as Mrs Reichardt said, we looked as if we had selected a dwelling in our own beloved England, in the heart of a rural district, instead of our being circumscribed in a little island thousands of miles across the wide seas, from the home of which we were so fond of talking.
There are, however, some oceanic or aquatic birds which point out the vicinity of land; especially shags, which seldom go out of sight of it; and gannets, boobies, and men-of-war birds, I believe, seldom go very far out to sea.
As for the innumerable gulls, and gannets, and terns, and lesser auks, which made the air forever loud about these lonely islets, nothing could have induced them to pay him any attention whatever. They knew him, and his people, to be harmless; and that was all their winged and garrulous companies were concerned to know.
To hold on to the slippery rock we needed but little clothing, anyhow, for it was a slow matter, and the clinging power of one's bare toes was essential. The innumerable gannets sitting on their nests gave the island the appearance of a snowdrift; and we soon had all the eggs that we needed lowered by a line.
"'What in the world, Skipper, does this mean? says he. 'We're sailing right into a snow-storm in dog-days and in a clear sky. "By this time we had got near enough to hear a great rushing noise in the air, every moment growing louder and louder. "'It's only a storm of gannets, says I. "'Sure enough! says he; 'but I wouldn't have believed it possible.
"How very strange!" said William, surprised. "Yes, sir; but you see how it is the small fish were chased by the larger ones, which are bonettas, and in their fright ran upon the beach. These bonettas were so anxious to catch them, that they came on shore also, and then the gannets picked them all up."
Sea and Water Fowls of all sorts are, however, in no great plenty; those known in Europe are Ducks, Shags, Gannets, and Gulls, all of which were Eat by us, and found exceeding good; indeed, hardly anything came Amiss to us that could be Eat by Man.
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