Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/73

Rh and bones of fishes which this animal must continually swallow without separating them from the flesh. From the outside of its scales we took a small animal which seemed to be a louse (if I may so call it), as it certainly stuck to him, and preyed upon the juices which it extracted by suction, probably much to his disquiet: it proved to be Monoculus piscinus, Linn. Baster has given a figure of it in his "Opera Subseciva," but has by some unlucky accident mistaken the head for the tail. Inside the fish were also found two animals which preyed upon him; one Fasciola pelami, Mss., in his very flesh, though near the membrane which covers the intestines; the other Sipunculus piscium, Mss., in the stomach.

2nd. This morning two swallows were about the ship, though we must now be sixty leagues at least from any land; at night one of them was taken, and proved to be Hirundo domestica, Linn.

4th. I went out in a boat and took Dagysa strumosa, Medusa porpita, which we had before called azurea, Mimus volutator and a Cimex, which runs upon the water here in the same manner as C. lacustris does in our ponds in England. Towards evening two small fish were taken under the stern; they were following a shirt which was towing, and showed not the least signs of fear, so that they were taken with a landing-net without the smallest difficulty. They proved to be Balistes monoceros, Linn.

7th. Went out in the boat, and took what is called by the seamen a Portuguese man-of-war, Holotharia physalis, Linn., also Medusa velella, Linn., Onidium spinosum, Mss., Diodon erinaceus, Mss., Dagysa vitrea, Mss., Helix ianthina, Linn., violacca, Mss., and Procellaria oceanica, Mss. The Holothuria proved to be one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen; it consisted of a small bladder, in shape much like the air-bladder of a fish, from the bottom of which descended a number of strings of bright blue and red, some three or four feet in length; if touched,