They set to work now to make some tea and roast the moorhens, having determined to have tea and supper together. The tea was ready long before the moorhens, and by the time they had finished the moon was shining brightly, though there were some flecks of cloud. They could not of course play cards, so Bevis got out his journal; and having put down about the honey-bird, and the swan, and the discoveries they had made, went on to make a list of the trees and plants on the island, and the birds that came to it. They had seen a small flock of seven or eight missel-thrushes pass in the afternoon, and Mark said that all the birds came from the unknown river, and flew on towards the north-north-west. This was the direction of the waste, or wild pasture. “Then there must be mainland that way,” said Bevis; “and I expect it is inhabited and ploughed, and sown with corn, for that’s what the birds like at this time of the year.” “And the other way--where they come from--must be a pathless jungle,” said Mark. “And they rest here a moment as they cross the ocean. It is too far for one fly.” “My journal ought to be written on palm leaves,” said Bevis, “a book like this is not proper: let’s get some leaves to-morrow and see if we can write on them.” “Don’t shipwrecked people write on their shirts,” said Mark, “and people who are put in prison?” “So they do--of course: but our shirts are flannel, how stupid!” “I know,” said Mark, “there’s the collars.” He went into the hut and brought out their linen collars, which they had ceased to wear. Bevis tried to write on these, but the ink ran and sank in, and it did not do at all. “Wrong ink,” he said, “we must make some of charcoal--lampblack--and oil. You use it just like paint, and you can’t blot it, you must wait till it dries on.” “No oil,” said Mark. “I wanted to rub the gun with some and looked, but there is none--we forgot it.” “Yellow-hammers,” said Bevis, turning to his journal again; “what are yellow-hammers?” “Unknown birds,” said Mark. “We don’t know half the birds--nobody has ever put any name to them, nobody has ever seen them: call them, let’s see--gold-dust birds--” “And greenfinches?” “Ky-wee--Ky-wee,” said Mark, imitating the greenfinches’ call. “That will do capital--Ky-wees,” said Bevis. “There’s a horse-matcher here,” said Mark. The horse-matcher is the bold hedge-hawk or butcher bird. “The one that sticks the humble-bees on the thorns.” “Bee-stickers--no, bee-killers: that’s down,” said Bevis. Besides which he wrote down nettle-creepers (white-throats), goldfinch, magpie, chaffinch, tree-climber, kestrel-hawk, linnets, starlings, parrots, and parrakeets. “I shall get up early to-morrow morning,” he said. “I’ll load the matchlock to-night, I want to shoot a heron.”