4 8o DISCOVERY REPORTS 



fleas. Some were of the opinion that at certain seasons of the year the whales shake these 

 worms off from their bodies, but of this they have no certainty". 1 



The chronicler of the voyage of Schouten and Le Maire in 1615 says, " towards 35^° 

 [south] we saw those insects of which Sebald de Werd had spoken to us, and which 

 made the sea quite red", while L'Heremite, when sailing for the coast of Brazil from 

 Annobon which he had left on November 11, 1623, "on the 19th and 20th of January 

 1624 observed the sea discoloured with an infinite number of small shrimps". 2 On 

 January 30 he made Cape de Penas, Tierra del Fuego. 



Captain John Narborough, commanding H.M.S. 'Sweepstakes', in 1670, records, 

 " Tuesday February 1st. Foggy weather ; several beds of sea weeds floating in the water 

 and sea fowls striking about them for small fish. It fell calm in the afternoon; we had 

 many small shrimps about the ship and eight young seals came close to us. This evening 

 I sounded but had no ground at 130 fathoms.. . .February 5th. We were this day in 

 latitude 41 S and longitude west from the Lizard 52 50' ". 3 



Dampier says, in the account of his voyage round the world, under January 28, 1683, 

 "The day that we made these islands [the ' Sibbel de Wards', now called the Jason 

 Islands, off the north west point of the Falkland Islands] we saw great Sholes of small 

 Lobsters, which coloured the Sea red in spots, for a mile in compass, and we drew some 

 of them out of the Sea in our Water-buckets. They were no bigger than the top of a 

 Man's little Finger, yet all their Claws, both great and small like a Lobster. I never saw 

 any of this sort of Fish naturally red but here ; for ours on the English Coast, which are 

 black naturally, are not red till they are boiled : neither did I ever anywhere else meet 

 with any Fish of the Lobster-shape so small as these; unless, it may be, Shrimps or 

 Prawns: Capt. Swan and Capt. Eaton met also with Sholes of this Fish in much the 

 same Latitude and Longitude". 4 Cowley, who sailed with Dampier, also records the 

 occurrence of the red lobsters. 



In 1696 De Gennes, sailing down the Patagonian coast at the end of January, found 

 "the sea so covered with little lobsters that one could say the sea was red with them. 

 We took up more than ten thousand of them in baskets". 5 



Le Hen-Brignon records that on March 7, 1747, in 42 22' S, off the coast of Pata- 

 gonia, " at 6 in the evening we saw an enormous number of little red fish, of the size and 

 shape of a small lobster. They had two fairly long pincers at the front of the head". 5 



Commodore Byron says that on November 14, 1764, " the sea appeared as red as blood, 

 being covered with a small shell fish of that colour, somewhat resembling our crayfish, 

 but less, of which we took up great quantities in baskets". 6 The following day his 

 position was 45 21' S, 63 2' W. 



1 Translated from Des Brasses, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes. Paris, 1756. 



2 Prior, S., All the voyages round the world. London, 1820. 



3 Burney, J. A., Chronological History of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Seas. London, 1803-17. 



4 Dampier, W. A., New Voyage Round the World. 7th edition, London, 1717. 



5 Translated from Des Brosses, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes. Paris, 1756. 



6 Hawkesworth, Account of the Voyages undertaken by order of His present Majesty for making Discoveries 

 in the Southern Hemisphere. London, 1773. 



