Occasionally when bewilderment has come I call to mind what Mrs. Jarley
said of her waxwork, and let the case pass: "I won't go so far as to
say that, as it is, I've seen waxwork quite like life but I've certainly
seen some life that was exactly like waxwork." When I see a crab not
easily distinguishable from a piece of sponge and a piece of sponge far
more like a crab generally than the crab, that unconsciously mimics it,
and possessing just as much apparent animation, I am content to be
tricked in many other ways by the good mother of us all.

Having ventured so far by way of preface, it is quite possible that the
reader may have concluded that something exceptionally marvellous is to
follow. Disappointment was inevitable from the first. The relation of
some of the quaint distinguishing traits of the Island fauna must be left
until the historian imagines that he has established a reputation for
subduing, rather than heightening, the tone of his facts. This
introduction has not a particular but a wide bearing.

Chief among the birds of prey are the osprey, the white-headed sea-eagle,
and the white-bellied sea-eagle. The great wedge-tailed eagle (eagle-hawk)
is a rare visitor, and is not a fisher. The others are resident and are
industrious practisers of the art which, according to their
interpretation, is anything but gentle. As they indulge in it, the sport
is so rough and boisterous and clumsy that one wonders that so many fish
should be caught. Each soars over the sea in circles at a height of
about 60 feet or 80 feet, and when fish are seen flies down and, plunging
into the water, seizes its prey with its talons. Unless the bird is
watched closely its attitudes while preparing for the downward cast and
during the descent are misunderstood. "And like a thunderbolt he falls"
is quite, according to local observations, an erroneous description of