Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/183

] have been a very proper regulation, if a boat had been kept expresly for the ue of thoe gentlemen of the expedition who were appointed to make reearches into natural hitory.

A bird that was hot upon one of the lakes, urpried us very much by the ingularity of its plumage. It was a new pecies of the wan, of the ame beautiful form, but rather larger than ours. Its colour was a hining black, as triking in its appearance as the clear white of ours. In each of its wings it had ix large white feathers; a character, which I have uniformly remarked in everal others that were afterwards killed. The upper mandibule was of a red colour, with a tranvere white treak near the extremity. The male had at the bae of it an excrecence coniting of two protuberances, that were carcely obervable in the female. The lower mandibule is red at the edges and white in the middle. The feet are of a dark grey. (See Plate IX.)

24th. It was ten o'clock of the next morning, before I could finih my decription and preparation of the pecimens I had collected the preceding day. I then went to examine the country ituated to the eatward of our anchoring tation. It frequently happened that after having penetrated into the woods to the ditance of 500 toies, at mot, from the hore, I was obliged to return towards