Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/330

272 On the shoals and sandbanks near the shore of the bay were many large birds, far larger than swans, which we judged to be pelicans; but they were so shy that we could not get within gun-shot of them. On the shore were many birds; one species of bustard, of which we shot a single bird, was as large as a good turkey. The sea seemed to abound in fish, but unfortunately, at the first haul, we tore our seine to pieces. On the mud-banks, under the mangrove trees, were innumerable oysters, hammer-oysters, and many more sorts, among which were a large proportion of small pearl-oysters. Whether the sea in deeper water might abound with as great a proportion of full-grown ones, we had not an opportunity to examine; but if it did, a pearl fishery here must turn out to immense advantage.

24th. At daybreak we went to sea. At dinner we ate the bustard we shot yesterday. It turned out an excellent bird, far the best, we all agreed, that we had eaten since we left England; and as it weighed fifteen pounds, our dinner was not only good but plentiful.

26th. We tried in the cabin to fish with hook and line, but the water was too shoal (three fathoms) for any fish. This want was, however, in some degree supplied by crabs, of which vast numbers were on the ground, who readily took our baits, and sometimes held them so fast with their claws, that they suffered themselves to be hauled into the ship. They were of two sorts, Cancer pelagicus, Linn, and another much like the former, but not so beautiful. The first was ornamented with the finest ultramarine blue conceivable, with which all his claws, and every joint, were deeply tinged. The under part was of a lovely white, shining as if glazed, and perfectly resembling the white of old china. The other had a little of the ultramarine on his joints and toes, and on his back three very remarkable brown spots.

In examining a fig which we had found at our last going ashore, we found in the fruit a Cynips, very like, if not exactly the same species as Cynips sycomori, Linn., described by Hasselquist in his Iter Palestinum, a strong proof of the fact that figs must be impregnated by means