226 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND cuap. x 
of North America, make up the whole list. Of these last, 
however, which are most justly accounted the curse of any 
country where they abound, we never met with any great 
abundance; a few indeed there were in almost every place 
we went into, but never enough to make any occupations 
ashore troublesome, or to give occasion for using shades for 
the face, which we had brought out to protect us from such 
insects. 
For this scarcity of animals on the land the sea, how- 
ever, makes abundant recompense; every creek and corner 
produces abundance of fish, not only wholesome, but at least 
as well-tasted as our fish in Europe. The ship seldom 
anchored in, or indeed passed over (in light winds), any 
place whose bottom was such as fish generally resort to, 
without our catching as many with hooks and line as the 
people could eat. This was especially the case to the south- 
ward, where, when we lay at anchor, the boats could take 
any quantity near the rocks; besides which the seine 
seldom failed of success, insomuch that on the two occasions 
when we anchored to the southward of Cook’s Straits, every 
mess in the ship that had prudence enough salted as much 
fish as lasted them many weeks after they went to sea, 
For the sorts, there are mackerel of several kinds, one 
precisely the same as our English, and another much like 
our horse-mackerel, besides several more. These come in 
immense shoals and are taken in large seines by the natives, 
from whom we bought them at very easy rates. Besides 
these there were many species which, though they did not 
at all resemble any fish that I at least have before seen, our 
seamen contrived to give names to, so that hake, bream, 
cole-fish, etc., were appellations familiar with us, and I must 
say that those which bear these names in England need not 
be ashamed of their namesakes in this country. But above 
all the luxuries we met with, the lobsters, or sea-crawfish, 
must not be forgotten. They are possibly the same as are 
mentioned in Lord Anson’s voyage as being found at the 
island of Juan Fernandez, and differ from ours in England 
in having many more prickles on their backs and being red 
