RANSVESTIA

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four of us made it to dinner. Fortunately I know enough about what causes seasickness to be able to avoid it).

The islands themselves are all volcanic-craters and lava flows. One of them is still active, having last erupted about forty years ago. Being so far from the continent the plants and animals that live on the islands arrived by flying there in the case of some of the birds, by winds or by "rafting," a name for drifting from the mainland. Large logs and sometimes groups of them grown together with vines, grasses and soil float down tropical rivers and hold together long enough to be caught by the ocean currents and make landfall on the islands. But in turn some of the islands are sufficiently far from each other to provide separate environment and to discourage movement from one to the other. Thus over the millenia various plant and animal species have evolved differently on different islands and it was this observation that led Darwin to the concept of natural selection.

Although the pirates and whalers that landed on the islands over the last few centuries wiped out a number of species of tortoises, doves and other edible animals the intrusion of man onto the islands' ecology has been so little that the birds and animals have not learned to fear man. As a result the greatest attraction of the islands is the tameness of the birds, iguanas and the seals and sea lions. The birds won't even get off the pathways when you approach. If they have picked a piece of ground to nest on which happens to be part of the trail they are not about to be disturbed by passing tourists. Being a national park there are marked trails and you are supposed to stay within the markers. If they didn't do this people would be everywhere, throwing away trash, trampling down the plant life, chasing and scaring animals and birds, etc. So you stay on the trail, do not chase or frighten or try to touch the wild life. The result is that you can land on a beach and there is a mother sea lion nursing her cub and you can go up with three or four feet to watch the process. Of course you don't get that close to a sea lion bull-he is likely to be a little touchy.

We went swimming in a pool that the fur seals frequented. Using a snorkle you could swim around and see the seals looking at you and swimming just out of reach four or five feet away. That was pretty fascinating. I was the oldest member of our group but I was the first one to jump in that surg-ocean pool to swim with the seals. The pool was in the lava and connected to the ocean by a short tunnel so every

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