It may be remarked that the breeding season of the nutmeg pigeon is also protracted over a third of the year--from September to the end of January, two or three single successive clutches being reared. The pigeon is a visitor, the swift a resident. II. THREE FISHERS At the outset it is almost incumbent to announce that this is not a fish story. It is not even a story, though fish play a secondary part in it. Therefore it should not make shipwreck of the faith of those who smile and sniff whensoever a fish or a snake is informally introduced in print. The imagination of some observers of the wonders of natural history paints incidents so extravagantly that their illustrative value is depreciated if not entirely distorted. As I would wish to establish a sort of general confidence with any chance reader of these lines who, like myself, finds no need for exaggeration in the chronicling of observations, being well aware that Nature with the ease of consummate art outwits the wisest and laughs at the blotches of the boldest impressionist, it seems but common politeness to explain that though the Island may be romantic, the art of romancing is alien from its shores, albeit (as some one has hinted) that in imagination reverently applied lies the higher truth. The distance from the mainland is not so great as to deprive the Island of generally distinctly Australian characteristics. It was, no doubt, in the remote past, merely a steep and high range of hills separated from other hills and mountains by plains and lagoons. Delicate land shells, salt-hating frogs, and subtle snakes are among the living testifiers to past connection with Australia, but while all the animals and nearly all the birds native to the island are common on the mainland, several mainland types are conspicuously absent. If, therefore, the birds and mammals seem in these literal chronicles to have little ways of their own, may they not owe obedience to true and abiding circumstances--a kind of unavoidable fate--due to isolation? It would indeed be singular if an island so long separated from Australia as to possess no marsupial did not impress certain idiosyncrasies upon its fauna and flora. It would be absurd to contend that as a rule, the untamed creatures carry any marks of distinction, but I have had the opportunity of studying facts of which I have never been fortunate to have confirmation either by reading or by "swapping lies" with other students of Nature.