dotted with men trying to get the maximum amount of water from the sea in a small bucket let down on a line from the moving ship.  First efforts in this direction would have been amusing had it not been for the caustic eye of the ‘Mate’ on the bridge.  If the reader ever gets the chance to try the experiment, especially in a swell, he will soon find himself with neither bucket nor water.  The poor Mate was annoyed by the loss of his buckets.

Everybody was working very hard during these days; shifting coal, reefing and furling sail aloft, hauling on the ropes on deck, together with magnetic and meteorological observations, tow-netting, collecting and making skins and so forth.  During the first weeks there was more cargo stowing and paintwork than at other times, otherwise the work ran in very much the same lines all the way out—­a period of nearly five months.  On July 1 we were overhauled by the only ship we ever saw, so far as I can remember, during all that time, the Inverclyde, a barque out from Glasgow to Buenos Ayres.  It was an oily, calm day with a sea like glass, and she looked, as Wilson quoted, “like a painted ship upon a painted ocean,” as she lay with all sail set.

We picked up the N.E.  Trade two days later, being then north of the Cape Verde Islands (lat. 22 deg. 28’ N., long. 23 deg. 5’ W. at noon).  It was a Sunday, and there was a general ‘make and mend’ throughout the ship, the first since we sailed.  During the day we ran from deep clear blue water into a darkish and thick green sea.  This remarkable change of colour, which was observed by the Discovery Expedition in much the same place, was supposed to be due to a large mass of pelagic fauna called plankton.  The plankton, which drifts upon the surface of the sea, is distinct from the nekton, which swims submerged.  The Terra Nova was fitted with tow nets with very fine meshes for collecting these inhabitants of the open sea, together with the algae, or minute plant organisms, which afford them an abundant food supply.

The plankton nets can be lowered when the ship is running at full speed, and a great many such hauls were made during the expedition.

July 5 had an unpleasant surprise in store.  At 10.30 A.M. the ship’s bell rang and there was a sudden cry of “Fire quarters.”  Two Minimax fire extinguishers finished the fire, which was in the lazarette, and was caused by a lighted lamp which was upset by the roll of the ship.  The result was a good deal of smoke, a certain amount of water below, and some singed paper, but we realized that a fire on such an old wooden ship would be a very serious matter, and greater care was taken after this.

Such a voyage shows Nature in her most attractive form, and always there was a man close by whose special knowledge was in the whales, porpoises, dolphins, fish, birds, parasites, plankton, radium and other things which we watched through microscopes or field-glasses.  Nelson caught a Portuguese man-of-war (Arethusa) as it sailed past us close under the counter.  These animals are common, but few can realize how beautiful they are until they see them, fresh-coloured from the deep sea, floating and sailing in a big glass bowl.  It vainly tried to sail out, and vigorously tried to sting all who touched it.  Wilson painted it.