Page:A voyage to New Holland - Dampier.djvu/136

 the second sort are grey, with white bellies and breasts. The third sort, which is the true pintado, or painted-bird, is curiously spotted white and black. Their heads and the tips of their wings and tails are black for about an inch; and their wings are also edged quite round with such a small black list; only within the black on the tip of their wings there is a white spot seeming as they fly (for then their spots are best seen) as big as a half-crown. All this is on the outside of the tails and wings; and, as there is a white spot in the black tip of the wings, so there is in the middle of the wings which is white, a black spot; but this, towards the back of the bird, turns gradually to a dark grey. The back itself, from the head to the tip of the tail, and the edge of the wings next to the back, are all over spotted with fine small, round, white and black spots, as big as a silver twopence, and as close as they can stick one by another: the belly, thighs, sides, and inner part of the wings, are of a light grey. These birds, of all these sorts, fly many together, never high, but almost sweeping the water. We shot one a while after on the water in a calm, and a water-spaniel we had with us brought it in: I have given a picture of it, but it was so damaged that the picture