36 A V a Y A G E T O 



1776. occafioned us to found ; but we found no around with a line 



ill » ' of one hundred and fifty fathoms. We put a boat in the 



water, and Ihot a few birds ; one of which was a black pe- 

 trel, about the iize of a. crow, and, except as to the bill and 

 feet, very like one. It had a few white feathers under the 

 throat ; and the under-fide of the quill-feathers were of an 

 afli-colour. All the other: feathers were, jet black, as alfo 

 the bill and legs. 



Tuefday 8. On the 8th, in the evening, one of thofe birds which 

 failors call noddies, fettled on our rigging, and was caught. 

 It was fomething larger than an Englifli black-bird, and 

 nearly as black, except the upper part of the head, which 

 was white, looking as if it were_powdered ; the whiteil fea- 

 thers growing out from the bafe of the upper bill, from 

 which they gradually alTumed a darker colour, to about the 

 middle of the upper part of the neck, where the white fhade 

 was loft in the black, without being divided by any line. 

 It was web-footed ; had black legs and a black bill, which 

 was long, and not unlike that of a curlew. It is faid thefe 

 ^birds never fly far from land. We knew of none nearer the 

 flation we were in, than Cough's or Richmond Ifland, from 

 which our dillance could not be iefs than one hundred 

 leagues. But it muft be obferved tliat the Atlantic Ocean, 

 to the Southward of this latitude, has been but little fre- 

 quented ; fo that there may be more iflands there than we 

 are acquainted with. 



We frequently, in the night, faw thofe luminous marine 

 animals mentioned and defcribed in my iirfl voyage *. 

 Some of them feemed to be confiderably larger than any I 



■•^ See Hawkefworth's Colledion of Voyages, Vol. II. p. 15. 



had 



