I got a number of empty condensed-milk tins, and, by means of fire, separated from the cylinder the tin disc that formed the bottom.

On this disc I scratched a message with a sharp nail.

In a few words I conveyed information about the wreck and my deplorable condition.

I also gave the approximate bearings--latitude fifteen to thirteen degrees, not far from the Australian main.
These discs--I prepared several in English, French, bad Dutch, German, and Italian--I then fastened round the necks of the pelicans, by means of fish-gut, and away across the ocean sped the affrighted birds, so scared by the mysterious encumbrance that _they never returned to the island_.
I may say here that more than twenty years later, when I returned to civilisation, I chanced to mention the story about my messenger-birds to some old inhabitants at Fremantle, Western Australia, when, to my amazement, they told me that a pelican carrying a tin disc round its neck, bearing a message in French from a castaway, _had_ been found many years previously by an old boatman on the beach near the mouth of the Swan River.

But it was not mine.
So appalling was the monotony, and so limited my resources, that I welcomed with childish glee any trifling little incident that happened.
For example, one lovely night in June I was amazed to hear a tremendous commotion outside, and on getting up to see what was the matter, I beheld dimly countless thousands of birds--Java sparrows I believe them to be.