64 TERRA DEL FUEGO TO OTAHITE CHAP. IV 
9th. This morning some seaweed floated past the ship, 
and my servant declares that he saw a beetle fly over her. 
I do not believe he would deceive me, and he certainly 
knows what a beetle is, as he has these three years been 
often employed in taking them for me. 
15th. Went in the boat and killed Procellaria velox, 
Nectris munda and fuliginosa, which two last are a new 
genus between Procellaria and Diomedea: this we reckon a 
great acquisition to our bird collection. 
17th. Saw several porpoises without any “pinna dorsalis,” 
black on the back, white under the belly and on the nose. 
We saw also an albatross different from any other I have 
seen, it being black all over, except the head and bill, which 
were white. 
21st. A bird not seen before attended the ship; it was 
about the size of a pigeon, black above and light-coloured 
underneath. It darted swiftly along the surface of the 
water in the same manner as I have observed the Nectris to 
do, of which genus it is probably a species. 
26th. Albatrosses began to be much less plentiful than 
they have been (lat. 41° 8’). 
3rd March. Killed Procellaria velox, velificans, sordida, 
melanopus, lugens, agilis, and Diomedea exulans. The alba- 
tross was very brown, exactly the same as the first I killed, 
which, if I mistake not, was nearly in the same latitude on 
the other side of the continent. Caught Holothuria obtusata, 
Phyllodoce velella, exactly the same as those taken on the 
other side of the continent, except in size, which in these 
did not exceed that of an English sixpence. Dagysa vitrea 
was also the same as that taken off Rio de Janeiro; now, 
however, we had an opportunity of seeing its extraordinary 
manner of breeding. The whole progeny, fifteen or twenty 
in number, hung in a chain from one end of the mother, the 
oldest only, or the largest, adhering to her, and the rest to 
each other. 
Among a large quantity of birds I had killed (sixty-two in 
all) I found two Hippobosce, or forest flies, both of one species, 
and different from any described. More than probably these 
