Presently the reporter told the sailor to wait just where he was until he should come back, and without losing a moment, he walked back along the coast in the direction which Neb had taken some hours before, and disappeared quickly around a turn in the shore. Herbert wished to go with him. “Stay, my boy,” said the sailor. “We must pitch our camp for the night, and try to find something to eat more satisfying than shellfish. Our friends will need food when they come back.” “I am ready, Pencroff,” said Herbert. “Good,” said the sailor. “Let us set to work methodically. We are tired, cold, and hungry: we need shelter, fire, and food. There is plenty of wood in the forest, and we can get eggs from the nests; but we must find a house.” “Well,” said Herbert, “I will look for a cave in these rocks, and I shall certainly find some hole in which we can stow ourselves.” “Right,” said Pencroff; “let us start at once.” They walked along the base of the rocky wall, on the strand left bare by the receding waves. But instead of going northwards, they turned to the south. Pencroff had noticed, some hundreds of feet below the place where they had been thrown ashore, a narrow inlet in the coast, which he thought might be the mouth of a river or of a brook. Now it was important to pitch the camp in the neighborhood of fresh water; in that part of the island, too, Smith might be found. The rock rose 300 feet, smooth and massive. It was a sturdy wall of the hardest granite, never corroded by the waves, and even at its base there was no cleft which might serve as a temporary abode. About the summit hovered a host of aquatic birds, mainly of the web-footed tribe, with long, narrow, pointed beaks. Swift and noisy, they cared little for the unaccustomed presence of man. A shot into the midst of the flock would have brought down a dozen; but neither Pencroff nor Herbert had a gun. Besides, gulls and sea-mews are barely eatable, and their eggs have a very disagreeable flavor. Meanwhile Herbert, who was now to the left, soon noticed some rocks thickly strewn with sea weed, which would evidently be submerged again in a few hours. On them lay hosts of bivalves, not to be disdained by hungry men. Herbert called to Pencroff, who came running to him. “Ah, they are mussels,” said the sailor. “Now we can spare the eggs.” “They are not mussels,” said Herbert, examining the mollusks carefully, “they are lithodomes.” “Can we eat them?” said Pencroff. “Certainly.” “Then let us eat some lithodomes.” The sailor could rely on Herbert, who was versed in Natural History and very fond of it. He owed his acquaintance with this study in great part to his father, who had entered him in the classes of the best professors in Boston, where the child’s industry and intelligence had endeared him to all.