302 SOME ACCOUNT OF NEW HOLLAND CH. xm 



wolves were, I believe, seen by several of our people, and 

 some other animals described ; but from the unintelligible 

 style of the describers, I could not even determine whether 

 they were such as I myself had seen, or of different kinds. 

 Of these descriptions I shall insert one, as it is not unenter- 

 taining. 



A seaman who had been out on duty declared that he 

 had seen an animal about the size of, and much like a one- 

 gallon cagg. " It was," says he, " as black as the devil, and 

 had wings, indeed I took it for the devil, or I might easily 

 have catched it, for it crawled very slowly through the 

 grass." After taking some pains, I found out that the 

 animal he had seen was no other than the large bat. 



Of sea-fowl there were several species : gulls, shags, 

 solan geese or gannets of two sorts, boobies, etc., and pelicans 

 of an enormous size ; but these last, though we saw many 

 thousands of them, were so shy that we never got one, as 

 were the cranes also, of which we saw several very large 

 and some beautiful species. In the rivers were ducks 

 which flew in very large flocks, but were very hard to come 

 at ; and on the beach were curlews of several sorts, some 

 very like our English ones, and many small beach birds. 

 The land birds were crows, very like if not quite the same 

 as our English ones, most beautiful parrots and parroquets, 

 white and black cockatoos, pigeons, beautiful doves, bustards 

 and many others which did not at all resemble those of 

 Europe. Most of these were extremely shy, so that it was 

 with difficulty that we shot any of them. A crow in Eng- 

 land, though in general sufficiently wary, is, I must say, a 

 fool to a New Holland crow, and the same may be said of 

 almost all if not all the birds in the country. The only 

 ones we ever got in any plenty were pigeons, of which we 

 met large flocks, and of which the men who were sent out 

 on purpose would sometimes kill ten or twelve a day. They 

 were beautiful birds, crested differently from any other 

 pigeon I have seen. What can be the reason of this extra- 

 ordinary shyness in the birds is difficult to say, unless 

 perhaps the Indians are very clever in deceiving them, 



