Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/133

Rh

skipped continually into and out of the water, making way with such amazing velocity in a strait line, that we were obliged to give over the pursuit. At last we came near enough to one, to wound it; but though we followed it closely, and fired above ten times with small shot, which we could observe to hit, yet we were at last obliged to kill it with ball. When we took it up, we perceived that its hard, glossy plumage, had continually turned the shot aside. This plumage is extremely thick, and consists of long narrow feathers, which lie above each other as closely as scales, and secure these amphibious birds against the wet, in which they almost constantly live. Their very thick skin and their fat seem wisely appropriated to them by nature, to resist the perpetual winter of these unhospitable climates; their broad belly, the situation of their feet far behind, and their fins, which supply the place of wings, are constructed with equal wisdom to facilitate the progress of their otherwise lumpish bodies through the water. The one that we had now shot weighed eleven pounds and a half. The blue petrels which are seen throughout this immense ocean, and which now settled in flocks of several hundreds on the smooth surface of the water, were not worse fitted out against the cold than the pinguins. Their plumage was amazingly abundant, and increased their bulk in a great proportion; and two feathers instead of one, proceeded