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/186

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suaded that so great a country could not fail of possessing new and unknown animals, had already twice reported that he had seen a brown animal, something less than a jackal or little fox, about the dawn of morning, sitting on a stump of a tree near our tents, and running off at his approach. But as this circumstance has never been confirmed by any subsequent testimony, nothing is more probable than that the want of day-light had deceived him, and that he had either observed one of the numerous wood-hens, which are brown, and creep through the bushes very frequently; or that one of our cats, on the watch for little birds, had been mistaken for a new quadruped.

Having taken the sail on board, we continued our course, and began our researches in the cove, where we killed many ducks of four different species. One of them was remarkably beautiful, and of the size of the eider duck. Its plumage was of a blackish brown, elegantly sprinkled with white; all the coverts of the wing were white, the rump and vent ferruginous, the quill and tail-feathers black, and the secondaries green. Another species was nearly of the size of our mallard, but all of a light-brown, every feather being edged with a yellowish white, of which there was a line on the cheek and eye-brows; the eyes of this sort had irides of a bright yellow, and on the wings there was a spot of fine bluish green inclosed in