182 SOUTH SEA ISLANDS TO NEW ZEALAND CH. vm 



water. Portable soup is very good ; it has now and then 

 required an airing to prevent it from moulding. Sour crout 

 is as good as ever. 



So much for the ship's company : we ourselves are hardly 

 as well off as they. Our live stock consists of seventeen 

 sheep, four or five fowls, as many South Sea hogs, four or five 

 Muscovy ducks, and an English hoar and sow with a litter 

 of pigs. In the use of these we are rather sparing, as the 

 time of our getting a fresh supply is rather precarious. 

 Salt stock we have nothing worth mentioning, except a kind 

 of salt beef and salted cabbage. Our malt liquors have 

 answered extremely well ; we have now both small beer and 

 porter upon tap, as good as I ever drank them, especially 

 the latter. The small beer had some art used to make it 

 keep. Our wine I cannot say much for, though I believe it 

 to be good in its nature ; we have not had a glass full these 

 many months, I believe chiefly owing to the carelessness or 

 ignorance of the steward. 



2nd October. Took Dagysa rostrata, serena, and polyedra ; 

 Beroe incrassata and coarctata ; Medusa vitrea ; PJiyllodoce 

 velella, with several other things which are all put in spirits ; 

 Diomedea exulans ; Procellaria velox, palmipes, latirostris, and 

 longipes ; and Nectris fuliginosa. 



3rd. In the course of the day several pieces of a new 

 species of seaweed were taken, and one piece of wood covered 

 with striated barnacles (Lepas anserina). 



5th. Two seals passed the ship asleep, and three birds 

 which Mr. Gore calls Port Egmont hens (Larus catarrhactes). 

 He says they are a sure sign of our being near land. They 

 are something larger than a crow ; in flight much like one, 

 flapping their wings often with a slow motion. Their 

 bodies and wings are of a dark chocolate or soot colour ; 

 under each wing is a small broadish bar of a dirty white, 

 which makes them so remarkable that it is hardly possible 

 to mistake them. They are seen, as he says, all along the 

 coast of South America and the Falkland Isles. I myself 

 remember to have seen them at Terra del Fuego, but by 

 some accident did not note them down. 



