Includes index.
"Edgekirk"--t.p.
Contents: Acknowledgements. Introduction. Song of the Furneaux Islands. Chapter 1. Discovery and Early History; Chapter 2. Sealers, Straitsmen and Aborigines; Chapter 3. Keeping in Touch--Communications; Chapter 4. Topography and Settlement; Chapter 5. Farming and Birding; Chapter 6. Harvest of the Seas: The Pot Boils Shoals; Chapter 7. Discovery Today--Where to Go, What to See; Chapter 8. The Outer Islands--Cloud Shadows on the Sea; Chapter 9. Natural History--Geology, Flora and Fauna; Chapter 10. Island Wildlife of Sea, Seashores and the Land; Chapter 11. Birds; Chapter 12. Conservation: Our Islands Where the Roaring Forties Blow; Appendix 1. General Information; Appendix 2. Historical Summary; Appendix 3. Origin of Place Names; Appendix 4. Shipwrecks; Appendix 5. Some Plants Indigenous to Flinders Island; Appendix 6. Animals of Rocky Shores and Sandy Beaches; Appendix 7. Freshwater Fishes of the Furneaux Group; Appendix 8. Amphibia of the Furneaux Group; Appendix 9. Reptiles of the Furneaux Group; Appendix 10. Native Mammals of the Furneaux Group; Appendix 11. Birds of the Furneaux Group; Appendix 12. Others Islands in the Municipality of Flinders; Selected Bibliography; Authors and Artists; Index; Derek Smith OAM. Postscripts 1994

Lovely, lovely islands are all that remains above Bass Strait of the land bridge which so recently linked Tasmania and Victoria. Some islands, low and wave-washed, resemble sleeping sea monsters; others rise like craggy castles above the perilous sea. The largest island in Bass Strait is Flinders, part of Australia's earliest history of shipwrecks, sealers, Straitsmen and Tasmanian Aborigines, who were brought for so-called sanctuary to Wybalenna--now a proclaimed Historic Site. Today Flinders has some 1000 inhabitants, mostly farmers and fishermen, one of the busiest airports in Tasmania and the magnificent Strzelecki National Park. There are over 400km of good roads, the Strezlecki Track and the Flinders Scenic Trail (100km) for walkers and horse riders; a 'zoo at large' of native animals; golf, bowls, tennis, team sports; beautiful beaches and gourmet seafoods, including crayfish, scallops and abalone. For several years Jean Edgecombe has paid regular flying visits (with her husband Gordon at the control of a small aircraft) to gather from many sources the information condensed into this book.