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° 31’. 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. 
31st. 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 
’ Probably the Gulf of San Mathias. 
