Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/76

18 described. It was about as large as the common kind, but differed from it in being whiter, especially about the face. We named it Procellaria crepidata, as its feet were like those of the gulls shot last week, black on the outside, but white near the legs. A large shoal of fish were all this day under the ship's stern, playing about, but refusing to take bait. We contrived to take one of them with a fizgig: it was in make and appearance like a carp, weighing nearly two pounds. Its sides were ornamented with narrow lines, and its fins almost entirely covered with scales: called it Chætodon cyprinaceus.

16th. I had the opportunity of seeing a phenomenon I had never before met with, a lunar rainbow which appeared about ten o'clock, very faint, and almost or quite without colour, so that it could be traced by little more than an appearance resembling shade on a cloud.

18th. This evening, trying, as I have often (foolishly no doubt) done, to exercise myself by playing tricks with two ropes in the cabin, I got a fall which hurt me a good deal, and alarmed me the more as the blow was on my head, and two hours after it I was taken with sickness at my stomach, which made me fear some ill consequence.

19th. To-day, thank God, I was much better, and eased of all apprehensions.

21st. To-day the cat killed our bird, Motacilla avida, which had lived with us ever since the 29th September entirely on the flies which it caught for itself: it was hearty and in high health, so that it might have lived a great while longer had fate been more kind.

25th. This morning about eight o'clock we crossed the equinoctial line in about 33° W. from Greenwich, at the rate of four knots, which our seamen said was uncommonly good, the thermometer standing at 79°. (The thermometers used in this voyage are two of Mr. Bird's making, after Fahrenheit's scale, and seldom differ by more than a degree from each other, and that only when they are as high as 80°, in which case the mean reading of the two instruments is set down.) This evening the ceremony of ducking the