as they were not in flesh, but as soon as the young ones were within
a few days of leaving the nests, we were then busy enough. In spite
of the screaming and the flapping of their wings in our faces, and
the darting their beaks at our eyes, of the old birds, as we robbed
them of their progeny, we collected hundreds every day, and bore as
heavy a load as we could carry across the ravine to the platform in
front of our cabin, where we busied ourselves in skinning them,
splitting them, and hanging them out to dry in the sun. The air of
the island was so pure that no putrefaction ever took place, and
during the last fortnight of the birds coming on the island, we had
collected a sufficiency for our support until their return on the
following year. As soon as they were quite dry they were packed up in
a corner of the cabin for use.

These birds were, it may be said, the only produce of the island,
with the exception of fish, and the eggs taken at the time of their
first making their nests. Fish were to be taken in large quantities.
It was sufficient to put a line over the rocks, and it had hardly
time to go down a fathom before anything at the end of it was seized.
Indeed, our means of taking them were as simple as their voracity was
great. Our lines were composed of the sinews of the legs of the
man-of-war birds, as I afterwards heard them named; and, as these were
only about a foot long, it required a great many of them knotted
together to make a line. At the end of the line was a bait fixed over
a strong fish-bone, which was fastened to the line by the middle; a
half-hitch of the line round one end kept the bone on a parallel with
the line until the bait was seized, when the line being taughtened,
the half-hitch slipped off and the bone remained crossways in the
gullet of the fish, which was drawn up by it. Simple as this
contrivance was, it answered as well as the best hook, of which I had