Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/360

302 wolves were, I believe, seen by several of our people, and some other animals described; but from the unintelligible style of the describers, I could not even determine whether they were such as I myself had seen, or of different kinds. Of these descriptions I shall insert one, as it is not unentertaining.

A seaman who had been out on duty declared that he had seen an animal about the size of, and much like a one-gallon cagg. "It was," says he, "as black as the devil, and had wings, indeed I took it for the devil, or I might easily have catched it, for it crawled very slowly through the grass." After taking some pains, I found out that the animal he had seen was no other than the large bat.

Of sea-fowl there were several species: gulls, shags, solan geese or gannets of two sorts, boobies, etc., and pelicans of an enormous size; but these last, though we saw many thousands of them, were so shy that we never got one, as were the cranes also, of which we saw several very large and some beautiful species. In the rivers were ducks which flew in very large flocks, but were very hard to come at; and on the beach were curlews of several sorts, some very like our English ones, and many small beach birds. The land birds were crows, very like if not quite the same as our English ones, most beautiful parrots and parroquets, white and black cockatoos, pigeons, beautiful doves, bustards and many others which did not at all resemble those of Europe. Most of these were extremely shy, so that it was with difficulty that we shot any of them. A crow in England, though in general sufficiently wary, is, I must say, a fool to a New Holland crow, and the same may be said of almost all if not all the birds in the country. The only ones we ever got in any plenty were pigeons, of which we met large flocks, and of which the men who were sent out on purpose would sometimes kill ten or twelve a day. They were beautiful birds, crested differently from any other pigeon I have seen. What can be the reason of this extraordinary shyness in the birds is difficult to say, unless perhaps the Indians are very clever in deceiving them,