230 VICTORIA. NEW SOUTH WALES. 



stretched out straight behind, as the animals swam, and the 

 motion mostly maintained by rapid strokes of the fore limbs. 

 The tail, however, /.c, the fin-like expanse formed by the 

 closely applied and outstretched flat hind flippers, was used 

 with an undulating movement, just as is the tail fin in 

 porpoises. 



The seals swam with case and rapidity from, the stern to the 

 bows of the vessel, though it was going 4I knots at the time, 

 thus going 9 knots at least. In fact they swam with all the 

 ease of a porpoise, and as once or twice they threw their heads 

 and backs out of the water in a forward leap, I should certainly 

 have mistaken them for these animals, had I not seen them 

 almost at rest several times, and with their heads well out of 

 water. 



I never before realized the close connection between the 

 seals and whales, and how easily a whale might be developed 

 out of a seal. The Fur Seal is one which on land still bends 

 its hind limbs forwards, as do land mammals. The seals 

 without external ears, like the sea elephants, carry them 

 habitually stretched out behind, as this one does in swimming. 

 Little modification would be necessary in order to' turn the other- 

 wise useless hind limbs of the earless seals into the whale's broad 

 tail fin, which probably represents the remains of the seal's 

 webbed hind flippers. We afterwards, in the Straits of 

 Magellan, became familiar with the motions of Fur Seals in 

 the water, and frequently saw them there in shoals, progressing 

 through the water by a series of leaps exacdy like porpoises 

 or Rock-hopper penguins. 



A bird followed the ship in some numbers, which is appa- 

 rently intermediate in its habits between the gulls and terns, 

 a delicate beautiful little sea-bird {Lams iwvce hollandicc). 

 The bird was abundant about the ship in Hobson's Bay, and 

 in Port Jackson. At Wellington, in New Zealand, a species 

 very closely allied, but a little smaller in size {La7-us 

 scopulimis)*' hovered round the ship in the harbour. 



Sydney, April 7th to June 9th, 1874. — The ship arrived at 

 Sydney on April 5th. Port Jackson is famed for its beauty. 

 It is a broad stretch of water, opening to the sea by a narrow 

 passage, between " heads," as they are called, and running far 

 inland, into branches and bays, in great number. Towards 

 the upper part of the harbour, the vegetation extends down 

 the water, and the little cliffs of sandstone rock with their 

 covering of green are extremely picturesque. Port Jackson is 

 one of the many harbours said to be the best in the world ; 



* Howard SaunrlcrB, ''On the Laridsr," Proc. Zool. Soc. 187S, p. 187, 



