Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/60

2 long and one thick, with a hollow passing quite through it; on one end was a brown spot, which might be the stomach of the animal. Four of these, the whole number that we took, adhered together when taken by their sides; so that at first we imagined them to be one animal: but upon being put into a glass of water, they very soon separated, and swam briskly about.

31st. Observed about the ship several of the birds called by the seamen Mother Carey's Chickens, Procellaria pelagica, Linn., which were thought by them to be a sure presage of a storm, as indeed it proved.

2nd September. The casting-net brought up two kinds of animals, different from any before taken. They came up in clusters, both sorts indifferently in each cluster, although there were much fewer of a horned kind than of the other: they seemed to be two species of one genus, but are not at all reducible to any hitherto described.

3rd. We were employed all day in describing the animals taken yesterday: we found them to be of a new genus, and of the same as that taken on the 28th of August; we called the genus Dagysa, from the likeness of one species to a gem.

4th. Employed in fishing with the casting-net. We were fortunate in taking several specimens of Dagysa saccata adhering together, sometimes to the length of a yard or more, and shining in the water with very beautiful colours; but another insect we took to-day was possessed of more beautiful colouring than anything in nature I have ever seen, hardly excepting gems. It is of a new genus, called Carcinium, of which we took another species, having no beauty to boast of; but the first, which we called opalinum, shone in the water with all the splendour and variety of colours that we observe in a real opal. It lived in a glass of salt water, in which it was put for examination, several hours, darting about with great agility, and at every motion showing an almost infinite variety of changeable colours. Towards the evening of this day a new phenomenon appeared: the sea was almost covered with a small species of crab (Cancer depurator, Linn.),