white beads.
Another day I fished up a copper oil can, such as engineers use to oil
machinery with; and yet another time a bag of gravel which had
apparently once formed part of a yacht's ballast.

When I found time heavy on my hands I would often take my canoe about
fifty yards south of La Fauconnaire, and with two or three lines fish
for rock fish, and never, on a single occasion, returned empty-handed.
The worst part of this performance was digging the bait of lugworms on
the little beach of Crevichon. It was terribly hard work lifting the
rocks and boulders aside to find a place to dig, and then it was harder
work in digging the nasty worms from the granite grit in which they
resided, dwelt, or had their horrid being. Probably these hairy, oozy
creatures have their joys and pleasures, and their woes, just as every
other of God's creatures, but of what their happiness consists who can
tell? Anyway they are good for bait, and so have use if not beauty to
commend them.

Crabs and lobsters I could trap at any time by putting down "pots"
anywhere round the island; but after a few weeks I got quite tired of
them for the table, but would occasionally put down a couple of "pots"
to see what of a curious nature I could catch. The crayfish,
spider-crabs, and hermit crabs, gave me infinite amusement, as they are
so different in their manners and customs to the ordinary crabs, and are
very bellicose, going for each other tooth and nail, or rather legs and
claws, in a most terrible manner. The way these little crustaceans
maimed each other put me in mind of the scene in Scott's "Fair Maid of
Perth," where the rival clans hew each others' limbs off with
double-handed swords, so that a truce has to be called for the purpose
of clearing the battle-ground of human _debris_. The crabs have the
advantage over the human species, insomuch that they can reproduce a
lost limb.

Finding I could catch a large quantity of fish of all kinds, especially
rock fish, which, being new to me, I greatly admired, I set about
constructing a fish pond near the house.

These rock fish are a curiosity in the way of fish. They run from about
six inches to two feet in length; weigh from a few ounces to a dozen
pounds, and no two that I have ever caught are alike, either in colour
or disposition of spots. They are spotty and speckly all over. Some have
copper-coloured spots, some yellow, some brown, some green, some red,
and some an assortment of colo