318 Forgotten Feathers. [Til^Sii 



Forgotten Feathers 



Notes on the Fauna of King Island from the Logbooks 

 of the " Lady Nelson." 



Coninumicaled by W. B. ALICXAXDER, Sherwood, near Brisbane 

 January, 19 2 J 



King Island in Bass Strait was discovered by Mr. Rtxd in 

 the schooner "Martha" in 1799. It was not, however, named 

 until January, 1801, when Captain Black, of the "Harbinger," 

 met with it on his way through the straits, and named it after 

 Governor King of New South Wales. 



The "Harbinger" was the second ship to pass through Bass 

 Strait on a voyage from England to Sydney, having been pre- 

 ceded in the previous month, December, 1800, by the "Lady 

 Nelson" under Lieutenant Grant. The "Lady Nelson" was a 

 small ship of 60 tons lent by the Admiralty to the Government 

 of New South Wales for purposes of exploration. She is best 

 known as the ship in which Murray discovered Port Phillip, 

 but that .she played a very important part in explorat-on and 

 development in early days is evident from a perusal of her 

 log-books, which have recently been published by Mrs. Marriott.* 



Earlier on tlie same voyage on which Port Phillip was dis- 

 covered, the "Lady Nelson" visited King Island and surveyed 

 its east coast. Lieutenant Murray makes several allusions in his 

 log to the animals and birds of the island, and as these contain 

 references to the extinct E,mu it seems important to bring them 

 under the notice of ornithologists. L^p to the present it has 

 generally been supposed that the account given by the French 

 naturalist, Peron, who visited the island eleven months later, was 

 the only written evidence about this interesting e.xtinct bird. On 

 Saturday, January, *)th, 1802. Murray notes: "Saw the loom of 

 the lanfl from tlie masthead, which 1 take to be Goxcrnor King's 

 Lsland." 



January 11th. "I now went on shore, found a good deal of 

 surf on the beach till we got on the southern side. . . . Here we 

 landed, and the first thing we saw was a number of sea elephants 

 of an immense size lying asleep on the beach, each of them, 

 Barnes, the boatswain's mate told me, would make eight or nine 

 barrels of oil ; as we rowed (knvn the shore we took them to be 

 blui.sh rocks. We found along this beach two fresh water 

 lagoons full of those animals which made it taste brackish. . . . 

 We could not get near the upper ])art of them on account of 

 the number of elephants ])laying in them both. T named the 

 bay Elephant Bay from this circumstance." 



[The v^ea Elejihant (MarrorJiinus Iconinus), the most remark- 

 able seal of the southern hemisphere, has long been extinct in 



* The Logbooks of the "Lady Nelson" with the Journal of her first 

 commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N. . by Ida Leo. F. R.G. S. (Mrs. 

 Charles Bruce Marriott). Grafton & Co., London, 191.'i. 



