APR. 1770 AUSTRALIA~—WEATHER—WATERSPOUTS 261 
of sox scomboides leaping out of the water in a very extra- 
ordinary manner, pursued by a large fish, which I saw but 
could not strike, though I did two of the former. In the 
evening saw several fish much resembling bonitos. 
The weather we have had for these nine days past, and 
the things we have seen upon the sea, are so extraordinary 
that I cannot help recapitulating a little. The weather, in 
the first place, which till the fifth was cool, or rather cold, 
became at once troublesomely hot, bringing with it a mouldy 
dampness such as we experienced between the tropics: the 
thermometer, although it showed a considerable difference 
in the degree of heat, was not nearly so sensible of it as our 
bodies, which I believe is generally the case when a damp 
air accompanies warmth. During the continuance of this 
weather the inhabitants of the tropical seas appeared: 
the tropic bird, flying fish, and Medusa porpita are animals 
very rarely seen out of the influence of trade winds. 
Several others also I have never before seen in so high a 
latitude, and never before in such perfection as now, except 
between the tropics. All these uncommon appearances I 
myself can find no other method of accounting for than the 
uncommon length of time that the wind had remained in 
the eastern quarter before this, which possibly had all that 
time blown home from the trade wind; and at the same 
time, as it kept the sea in a quiet and still state, had 
brought with it the produce of the climate from which it 
came. 
19th. With the first daylight this morning the land’ 
was seen; it made in sloping hills covered in part with 
trees or bushes, but interspersed with large tracts of sand. 
At noon we were sailing along shore, five or six leagues 
from it, with a brisk breeze of wind and cloudy unsettled 
weather, when we were called upon deck to see three water- 
spouts which made their appearance at the same time in 
different places, but all between us and the land. Two, 
1 To the southward of Cape Howe. The most southerly land seen was by 
Captain Cook called Point Hicks, It is not a point, but « hill, still called 
Point Hicks Hill (Wharton’s Cook, p. 237, note). 
