The extremely low tides prevalent at the opening of the month enabled us to extend our hunting grounds somewhat further than usual, and also to reach and demolish several “travellers” which the heavy seas had hurled into the boat tracks, thus constituting a serious danger at relief times. Quite a forest of luxuriant tangles now cover the lower lying portion of the reef. Their dripping blades appear on the surface, scintillating in the brilliant sunshine like so many diamonds, till the receding tide permits the warm sun to rob them of their freshness, their beauty vanishing in a perceptible vapour, leaving them flaccid and inert till the returning tide restores their pristine beauty. The badderlock or henware is here also in great profusion, and usually selects a position the reverse of peaceful, being generally found where the wash of the seas is most constant. Of rapid growth, they attain a great length, some measuring fully sixteen feet; one we had under observation was seen to increase a foot in length in six weeks time. Owing to hazy weather we had a number of compulsory visitors to dinner yesterday. Seated outside our kitchen window was a party of fog-bound travellers, consisting of a pigeon, a starling, a wagtail, a robin, and a couple of wheatears. The starling was sitting bunched up by himself, preserving a stolid indifference at his enforced detention, and appeared to treat the animated expansion and flirting of the wheatears’ tails as undue levity, unbecoming their sorrowful predicament. The beautiful black-throated wagtail is all alertness, and the slightest movement on our part sends him circling round the Rock till, unable to sight the land, he is fain to regain his resting place. The pigeon has been here a week now, and evidently has no intention of leaving. Should the window be left open he makes bold enough to enter, although but the other day he gave us a somewhat dramatic illustration of the proverbial hen on the hot “griddle” by rehearsing a fandango on the top of our cooking range, a position from which he had to be forcibly removed. To-day, the 21st, he has been joined by a companion of his own species, a red-chequered homer; but instead of the mutual demonstrations of pleasure one would expect to witness at their meeting in such isolation, they remained quite indifferent to each other’s presence, the newcomer possibly from motives of disdain, as he appears to belong to the aristocracy, seeing he sports an aluminium bracelet, on which are the letters “U.B.” and the year 1901, besides a number composed of three figures, which, unfortunately, I took no note of. A strong southerly breeze on the 22nd deprived us of their company. Losing the shelter of the tower, they were unable to make headway against the wind, and, fortunately for themselves, were driven landwards.