Among the _Vertebratæ_, the fishery of which is the principal object of the visits annually paid to the island, one, the _Cheilodactylus_, a spinous-finned fish, which is extraordinarily abundant all round the island, supports an important fishery, while _Thyrsites Atun_ were frequently caught with rod and line from the frigate.
Of _Amphibiæ_, there is not a vestige to be found on the island; the birds belong for the most part to the powerful-winged web-footed birds that frequent the open ocean, as, for example, the _Diomedea exulans_ (great albatross or man-of-war bird), _D. chlororhynchus_ (yellow-billed albatross), _D. fuliginosa_ (a new one not determined), _Lestris catarractes_, _Storna sp: Prion Vittatus_, of which the four last-named, at the time of our visit, had both eggs and young. Of birds with fin-shaped wings, there was the golden-crested penguin (_Apterodytes chrysocoma S._), living in two distinct colonies among the precipitous overhanging cliffs, with innumerable young, already of a pretty good size.[71] We also remarked several other winged denizens of the deep, which had alighted on our ship during the last few days immediately preceding our arrival at St. Paul. According to the fishery-people, the other birds of the island quit it altogether so soon as their young have grown sufficiently, and only return when the next breeding season comes round.
[Footnote 71: One of the zoologists, Mr. Zelebor, endeavoured to kill two penguins that had been caught alive in the island, the one with arsenic, the other with chloroform. Of the latter, a quantity was administered enough to have killed a man, but which scarcely affected the penguin, who, in a quarter of an hour after, seemed quite restored to himself. The second, which had swallowed two tea-spoonsful of arsenic, died eight hours later.]
In contradistinction to the sea-birds, M. Frauenfeld remarked but one single land-bird, a swallow, whose movements seemed to indicate that he was watching a breeding female. A stray bird on this lonely spot of earth, nearly 3000 miles away from the main land! Hundreds of questions suggested themselves on thus unexpectedly coming upon so well-known a wanderer. What could have condemned him to this self-imposed exile? Was he a straggler? Was it the first time he had selected this island for a home? Had it been his own cradle? And would he at some future period find companions to visit with him, and ultimately share these solitary desolate abodes?