MAR. 1769 OCEANIC LIFE 65 
belonged to the birds, and came off with them from the land. 
I found also this day a large Sepia, or cuttlefish, lying in the 
water, just dead, but so pulled to pieces by the birds that 
its species could not be determined. Only this I know, 
that of it was made one of the best soups I ever ate. It 
was very large; and its arms, instead of being like the 
European species, furnished with suckers, were armed with 
a double row of very sharp talons, resembling in shape those 
of a cat, and like them, retractable into a sheath of skin, 
from whence they might be thrust at pleasure. 
The weather has now become pleasantly warm, and the 
barnacles on the ship’s bottom seem to regenerate, very 
few of the old ones remaining alive, but young ones without 
number, scarcely bigger than lentils. 
5th. It now begins to be very hot; thermometer 70°, 
and damp, with prodigious dews at night, greater than any 
T have felt. This renews our uncomfortably damp situation, 
everything beginning to mould, as it did about the equinoc- 
tial line in the Atlantic. 
7th. No albatrosses have been seen since the 4th, and 
for some days before that we had only now and then a 
single one in sight, so we conclude that we have parted with 
them for good and all. : 
11th. A steady breeze had blown during the last three 
days, and there was no sea at all; from whence we con- 
cluded that we had passed the line drawn between the Great 
South Sea and the Pacific Ocean by the Council of the 
Royal Society ; notwithstanding we are not yet within the 
tropics. 
13th. I saw a tropic bird for the first time hovering over 
the ship, but flying very high: if my eyes did not deceive 
me it differed from that described by Linneus (Phaéton 
aetherius), in having the long feathers of his tail red. The 
servants with a dipping net took Mimus volutator and 
Phyllodoce velella, both exactly the same as those we saw in 
the Atlantic Ocean (lat. 30° 45’, long. 126° 23’ 45”). 
15th. This night there was an occultation of Saturn by 
the moon, which Mr. Green observed, but was unlucky in 
F 
