Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/109

1832.] this Colony, except one of his own brothers. These men, as well as some others, retain a sense of the kindness they met with from Joseph John Gurncy, Peter Bedford, Elizabeth Fry, and some others of our friends in England, such as gives us a more ready access to their best feelings.

In the afternoon we again made sail, passed Green Island, which has been stocked with Rabbits, and made a course outside the White Rock, off Oyster Bay, on which the kind of Seal that affords rich fur, is occasionally taken. In Spring Bay one of the people fishing, brought up a species of Octopodia, an animal of the Cuttle-fish tribe, with eight arms, which in this specimen were 15 inches long. These it fixed to whatever came in its way, by means of circular, saucer-like suckers. It travelled with its mouth, which is in the centre of the arms and like the beak of a parrot, downward, and its red body of about 3 inches long, and like an oval fleshy bag, upward. Between these, its large eyes were very conspicuous. Its strange appearance and remarkable movements, excited no small degree of surprise among our company.

10th mo. 1st. Mutton Birds were in such vast flocks, that, at a distance, they seemed as thick as bees when swarming.—The wind became adverse, and fearing lest we should be driven out to sea, we ran into Schouten Passage, and brought up under Freycinets Peninsula, in Oyster Bay, where we went on shore. One of the soldiers, going as a guard to Flinder's Island, shot a Black Swan, on a lagoon running parallel with the beach. The hills on the peninsula are red, porphyritic granite, as are also some of those on Schouten Island; but, on the inside of the latter, which is about four miles across, the newer formations occur vertically. On the hills, are the Blue Gum, the Oyster Bay Pine, and the Callitris pyramidalis, which is a Cypress-like tree.—The bush here was gay with various shrubs, among which were several species of Acacia, Boronia and Hibbertia, some of the Epacris tribe, Pomaderris elliptica, with large clusters of small sulphur coloured blossoms, and Comesperma volubilis, a beautiful climber, the flowers of which, in spring, hang