i8 ENGLAND TO RIO DE JANEIRO CHAP, i 



described. It was about as large as the common kind, but 

 differed from it in being whiter, especially about the face. 

 We named it Procellaria crepidata, as its feet were like 

 those of the gulls shot last week, black on the outside, but 

 white near the legs. A large shoal of fish were all this 

 day under the ship's stern, playing about, but refusing to 

 take bait. We contrived to take one of them with a fizgig : 

 it was in make and appearance like a carp, weighing nearly 

 two pounds. Its sides were ornamented with narrow lines, 

 and its fins almost entirely covered with scales : called it 

 Chcetodon cyprinaceus. 



16th. I had the opportunity of seeing a phenomenon I 

 had never before met with, a lunar rainbow which appeared 

 about ten o'clock, very faint, and almost or quite without 

 colour, so that it could be traced by little more than an 

 appearance resembling shade on a cloud. 



18^. This evening, trying, as I have often (foolishly no 

 doubt) done, to exercise myself by playing tricks with two 

 ropes in the cabin, I got a fall which hurt me a good deal, 

 and alarmed me the more as the blow was on my head, and 

 two hours after it I was taken with sickness at my stomach, 

 which made me fear some ill consequence. 



1 9th. To-day, thank God, I was much better, and eased 

 of all apprehensions. 



21st. To-day the cat killed our bird, Motacilla avida, which 

 had lived with us ever since the 29th September entirely on 

 the flies which it caught for itself: it was hearty and in 

 high health, so that it might have lived a great while longer 

 had fate been more kind. 



25th. This morning about eight o'clock we crossed the 

 equinoctial line in about 33 W. from Greenwich, at the 

 rate of four knots, which our seamen said was uncommonly 

 good, the thermometer standing at 79. (The thermometers 

 used in this voyage are two of Mr. Bird's making, after 

 Fahrenheit's scale, and seldom differ by more than a degree 

 from each other, and that only when they are as high as 

 80, in which case the mean reading of the two instruments 

 is set down.) This evening the ceremony of ducking the 



