Page:A voyage to New Holland - Dampier.djvu/114

 The bill-birds are so called by the English from their monstrous bills, which are as big as their bodies. I saw none of these birds here, but saw several of the breasts flayed off and dried for the beauty of them; the feathers were curiously coloured with red, yellow, and orange-colour.

The curresos (called here mackeraws) are such as are in the Bay of Campeachy.

Turtledoves are in great plenty here; and two sorts of wild pigeons; the one sort blackish, the other a light grey: the blackish or dark grey are the bigger, being as large as our wood-quests, or wood-pigeons in England. Both sorts are very good meat; and are in such plenty from May till September that a man may shoot 8 or 10 dozen in several shots at one standing, in a close misty morning, when they come to feed on berries that grow in the woods.

The jenetee is a bird as big as a lark with black feathers, and yellow legs and feet. It is accounted very wholesome food.

Clocking-hens are much like the crab-catchers which I have described, but the legs are not altogether so long. They keep always in swampy wet places, though their claws are