^°igo6^'] Scott, Forgotten Feathers. 25 



in the middle of the wings was a white spot, about which were 

 some reddish spots. On the crown it had a bunch of long 

 feathers, which appeared very pretty. His bill was like a Pigeon's ; 

 he had strong legs and feet like dung-hill fowls' ; only the claws 

 were reddish. His crop was full of small berries. It lays an egg 

 as big as a hen's egg, for our men climbed a tree where it nested 

 and brought off one egg!' 



Although Dampier tells us very little about the Australian 

 birds which he saw on this historic voyage, we can implicitly 

 rely on what he does tell as being honestly observed. He was 

 a man of solid common-sense, as well as a daring, eager 

 navigator. 



Such specimens as he had collected, together with a quantity 

 of shells gathered in Sharks' Bay, were lost when the Roebiick 

 was wrecked off Ascension Island in February, 1701. She was a 

 rotten old tub from the first. The plank in which the leak 

 sprang that caused the founding was, Dampier says, " so rotten 

 that it broke away like dirt." Our debt to Dampier, as also to 

 Columbus, Cook, Magellan, and other discoverers, is not based 

 on grounds of natural history. Nevertheless, we must be 

 interested in what any one of them saw by the way when they 

 sailed in strange seas and gazed on fresh coasts. 



I do not think that the English ornithologists of that day, 

 who would have had the handling of Dampier's Australian 

 specimens, if he had taken any home with him, would have 

 made very valuable use of them. Some American birds which 

 he took to England were described in an appendix to Dampier's 

 travels by a gentleman styled " A Fellow of the Royal Society." 

 Looking over his compilation, one is struck by his curiously 

 unscientific handling and by his unerring certitude in recognising 

 a bird that was good to eat. When he writes " the flesh of this 

 bird is excellent," "this bird hath good meat," and so forth, one 

 can almost hear him smacking his lips. The good man's English 

 is a little askew. For instance, he says of the Crested Eagle — 

 " His cry is like a hen that has lost its young." A cry that was 

 like a hen would beat the combined efforts of the gramophone 

 and the camera. 



Though perhaps we do not learn much from Dampier's 

 observations on Australian birds, it gives one pleasure to think that 

 the first Englishman who sailed in our seas was not unmindful 

 of the feathered inhabitants of the country. It would, of course, 

 be unreasonable to go to a navigator expecting careful ornithology. 

 Yet it is pleasing to think that the first living creatures belonging 

 to this country which the adventurous commander of the ricketty 

 little Roebuck saw were some of its birds. 



