The scanty vegetation is apparently limited to a grass growing in tussocks, and a few maritime plants.

The ground resembles a rabbit warren, being everywhere undermined by the burrows of the mutton-bird, a dark shearwater (Puffinus brevicaudus) the size of a pigeon.

A person in walking across the island can scarcely avoid frequently stumbling among these burrows, from the earth giving way under his feet, and I was told by one of the residents that snakes are very numerous in these holes, living upon the mutton-birds; I myself trod upon one which, fortunately, was too sluggish to escape before I had time to shoot it, and ascertain it to be the well-known black snake of the Australian colonists (Acanthophis tortor) a very poisonous species.

Among the seafowl, a large gull (Larus pacificus) was exceedingly plentiful, together with a smaller one (Xema jamesonii) and a few penguins (Spheniscus minor.) A fine flock of wild geese (Cereopsis novae hollandiae) was seen, but they were too wary to allow of close approach.

About dusk clouds of mutton-birds came in from the sea, and we amused ourselves with chasing them over the ground among their burrows, and as many specimens as I required were speedily provided by knocking them down with a stick.