JAN. 1769 OCEANIC LIFE 45 



appeared large. Both yesterday and to-day we also took 

 several ichneumons flying about the rigging. All the sea- 

 men say that we cannot be less than twenty leagues from the 

 land, but I doubt Grylli, especially, coming so far alive, as 

 they must float all the way upon the water. The sailors 

 ground their opinion chiefly on the soundings, the bottom 

 being continuously of sand of different colours, which, had 

 we been nearer the land, would have been intermixed with 

 shells. Their experience of this coast must, however, be 

 slight. 



Lat. 42 3 1/. A sea-lion was entered in the log-book as 

 being seen to-day, but I did not see it. I saw, however, a 

 whale, covered with barnacles as the seamen told me. It 

 appeared of a reddish colour, except the tail, which was 

 black like those to the northward. 



3 1st. No insects seen to-day ; the water changed to a 

 little better colour. On looking over the insects taken 

 yesterday I find thirty-one land species, all so like in size 

 and shape to those of England that they are scarcely dis- 

 tinguishable from the latter ; probably some will turn out 

 identically the same. We ran among them 160 miles by 

 the log, without reckoning any part of last night, though 

 they were seen till dark. We must be now nearly opposite 

 to " Baye sans fond," * near which place Mr. Dalrymple 

 supposes that there is a passage quite through the continent 

 of America. It would appear by what we have seen that 

 there is at least a very large river, probably at this time 

 much flooded, although it is doubtful whether even that 

 could have so great an effect (supposing us to be twenty 

 leagues from the land) as to render the water almost of a 

 clay colour, and to bring insects such as Grylli and an 

 Aranea, which never fly twenty yards. I lament much not 

 having tasted the water at the time, which never occurred 

 to me, but probably the difference of saltness would have 

 been hardly perceptible to the taste, and my hydrostatic 

 balance being broken I had no other method of trying it. 



2nd January 1769. Met with some small shoals of red 



1 Probably the Gulf of San Mathias. 



