ointed in finding that
these animals were not of the fur species, as in M. de Freycinet's
account of the island they are said to be; they were evidently the same
description as those noticed at King George's Sound. The traces of a
small kangaroo were everywhere abundant but the animals were not seen. We
walked to the easternmost of the lakes which the French named Etangs
Duvaildaily and which M. de Freycinet remarks as being surrounded by an
extensive beach, composed entirely of bivalve shells, a species of
cardium: the quantity was indeed extraordinary. The banks were frequented
by gulls and sandpipers, of which many were shot. The water was found to
be perfectly salt and from the circumstance of its rising and falling
with the tide it must have some communication with the sea. The rocks of
the island are principally calcareous and in a very advanced state of
decomposition. The beaches were covered with dead shells of the genera
buccinum, bulla, murex, trochus, and haliotis; but we found none with the
living animal in them. Of the feathered tribe a hawk and a pigeon were
the only land-birds seen; but boobies, terns, and sandpipers were very
numerous about the shores. Mr. Cunningham was fully employed during the
short time that we were on shore, and excepting the pleasing interest
created in our minds by landing on an island which has been so seldom
before seen, and which from Vlaming's account bears a prominent place in
the history of this part of the coast, he was the only one of the party
that derived any advantage from our visit. Of the productions of this
island he makes the following brief remarks: "It is surprising that an
island, situated at so short a distance from the south-west coast, should
bear so small a feature of the characteristic vegetation of King George's
Sound as not to furnish a plant of its several genera of Proteaceae or
Mimoseae, and but a solitary plant of Leguminosae. It would therefore
seem that these families are confined to the shores of the main,
particularly about King George's Sound, where we have just left them in
the greatest luxuriance and profusion. Among the botanical productions of
this island there is no plant of so striking a feature as the callitris,
a tree of about twenty-five feet high, with a short stem of three feet in
diameter; it much resembles the Pinus cedrus, or cedar of Lebanon, in its
robust horizontal growth; it is found abundantly over the island, and
within a few yar