Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/61

Rh floating upon the surface of the water, and moving with tolerable agility, as if the surface and not the bottom of the ocean were their proper station.

5th. I forgot to mention yesterday that two birds were caught in the rigging, which had probably come from Spain, as we were not then distant more than five or six leagues from that country. This morning another was caught and brought to me, but so weak that it died in my hand almost immediately. All three were of the same species, and not described by Linnæus; we called them Motacilla velificans, as they must be sailors who would venture themselves aboard a ship which is going round the world. To balance to some extent our good fortune, now become too prevalent, a misfortune happened this morning, almost the worst which our enemies could have wished. The morning was calm, and Richmond employed in searching for what should appear on the surface of the water; a shoal of Dagysæ was observed, and he, eager to take some of them, threw the casting-net, fastened only to his wrist; the string slipped from him, and the net at once sunk into the deep, nevermore to torment its inhabitants. This left us for some time entirely without a resource; plenty of animals came past the ship, but all the nets were in the hold, stowed under so many other things that it was impossible even to hope that they may be got out to-day at least. However, an old hoop-net was fastened to a fishing-rod, and with it one new species of Dagysa was caught: it was named lobata.

6th. Towards the middle of the day the sea was almost covered with Dagysæ of different kinds, among which two entirely new ones were taken (rostrata and strumosa), but neither were observed hanging in clusters, as most of the other species had been; whether from the badness of the new machine, or the scarcity of the animals, I cannot say.

It is now time to give some account of the genus of Dagysa, of which we have already taken six species, all agreeing very well in many particulars, but chiefly in this very singular one, that they have a hole at each end, communicating by a tube often as large as the body of the