Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/506

468 At the end of four hours very quick walking, we arrived on the banks of a great lake which has a communication with the sea.

The natives had recently made fires in many places which we passed.

We saw no kangarous; but their excrements, which we saw every where in great abundance, convinced us that that quadruped has multiplied greatly on that coast. We also observed excrements which very much resembled those of the cow; but we did not see the animal to which they belonged. We saw in the sand the prints of a cloven hoof, more than three inches in breadth. There is no doubt that that region is inhabited by animals much larger than the kangarous. It affords but little food for birds; and accordingly I found none in this excursion except two species, a muscicapa, which I afterwards met with in the Moluccas, and the fine species of red crested cockatoes, psittacus moluccensis, which are met with in the same islands, in flocks of many hundreds. When I attempted to approach them, they always removed to a great distance, flying rapidly, with sudden starts, and emitting loud and very disagreeable shrieks.

The banks of the lake, which we followed for some time in approaching the sea, are somewhat marshy. The lake extends a great way into the land;