Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/479

] Two sea-gulls, a male and a female, of the species called by Buffon, bourgmestre, and by Linnæus, larus fuscus, perched upon the heights at a small distance from us. The female having been shot, the male frightened by the noise of the explosion, took to flight; but presently returned, and being determined not to abandon his mate, was killed by her side!

I also fired at a seal, which lay at a distance from me. Feeling himself wounded, and distrusting his strength, he durst not take to the water. Immediately another very large one, hearing the cries of that which I had wounded, came and licked the blood with apparent satisfaction; but at the sight of a long-boat, which was steering towards them, they plunged into the sea.

Soon afterwards, I saw more of those animals advancing towards the beach. Before they ventured upon the land, they never failed to raise their bodies nearly half out of the water, and they remained some time in that attitude, smelling and gazing all round, in order to discover whether or not they could safely come and repose upon the rocks.

14th. As on the preceding day, I had gathered an abundant harvest of objects of natural history, of different genera, it became necessary for me to pass