T H E P A C I F I C O C E A N, 333 



talogue of uncultivated plants is too large to be enumerated '777. 

 here. Befides the pemphis dccafpermum, rnallococca, 7nal;a, and 

 fome other new genera, defcribed by Dr. Fofter *, there are 

 a few more found here ; which, perhaps, the different fea- 

 fons of the year, and his fhort ftay, did not give him an 

 opportunity to take notice of. Although it did not appear, 

 during our longer ilay, that above a fourth part of the trees, 

 and other plants, were in flower ; a circumftance abfolutely 

 necefTary, to enable one to diflinguifli the various kinds. 



The only quadrupeds, befides hogs, are a few rats, and 

 fome dogs, which are not natives of the place, but produced 

 from fome left by us in 1773, and by others got from Feejee. 

 Fowls, which are of a large breed, are domefticated here. 



Amongft the birds, are parrots, fomewhat fmaller than 

 the common grey ones, of an indifferent green on the back 

 and wings, the tail bluifh, and the reft of a footy or choco- 

 late brown ; parroquets, not larger than a fparrow, of a 

 fine yellowifli green, with bright azure on the crown of the 

 head, and the throat and belly red ; befides another fort as 

 large as a dove, with a blue crown and thighs, the throat 

 and under part of the head crimfon, as alfo part of the belly, 

 and the reft a beautiful green. 



There are owls about the fize of our common fort, but of 

 a finer plumage ; the cuckoos, mentioned at Palmerfton's 

 Ifland ; king-fiihcrs, about the fize of a thruflTt, of a green- 

 ifli blue, Vi^ich a white ring about the neck ; and a bird of 

 the thrufh kind, almoft as big, of a dull green colour, v/ith 

 two yellow wattles at the bafe of the bill, which is the only 

 finging one we obferved here : but it compenfates a good deal 



* See his Characferes Generum Plantaruin. Lond. 1776. 



for 



