ith the exception of
a very narrow portion fronted by a sandy beach, the place is densely
covered with mangroves. A sandy portion, of about five acres in extent,
is thickly covered with bushes and small trees, of which the most
conspicuous is a Bombax or cotton-tree, 20 to 30 feet in height, with
leafless horizontal branches bearing both flowers and fruit. Numbers of
the Torres Strait Pigeon (Carpophaga luctuosa) crossed over from the
mainland towards evening to roost; and at that time, and early in the
morning, great havoc was usually made among them. Even this small spot
produced a fine white, brown-banded Helix, not found elsewhere--it
occurred on the branches of the cotton-trees.

SHERRARD ISLES.

Three days afterwards we ran to the northward ten miles, and anchored
under the Sherrard Isles, where our stay was protracted until the 16th by
blowing weather. These islets are two in number, a quarter of a mile
apart, surrounded and connected by a reef. One is 120 yards in length,
sandy, and thinly covered with coarse grass and maritime plants, with a
few bushes; the other is only 30 yards across, and is covered by a clump
of small trees of Pemphis acida and Suriana maritima, appearing at a
distance like mangroves.

A small low wooded islet off Cape Direction, where I landed for a few
hours, was found to be composed entirely of dead coral with thickets of
mangrove and other bushes, and presented no feature worthy of further
notice. We were detained at an anchorage near Cape Weymouth for seven
days by the haziness of the weather, which obscured distant points
essential to the connexion of the survey.

PIPER ISLETS.

After having anchored once for the night under the lee of reef e of
King's chart--one of the most extensive we had hitherto seen, being
fourteen miles in length--on September 26th, the ship anchored under the
largest of the Piper Islets.

This group consists of four low bushy and wooded islets, situated on two
reefs separated by a deep channel. The larger of the two on the
south-eastern reef, off which the ship lay, is about half a mile in
circumference. The trees are chiefly a kind of Erythrina, conspicuous
from its light-coloured trunk and leafless branches; one of the most
abundant plants is a Capparis, with long drooping branches, occasionally
assisted by a Cissus and a Melotria, in forming small shady harbours. In
the evening, vast numbers of white pigeons came over from the mainland to
roost, and