302 SOME ACCOUNT OF NEW HOLLAND cu. xu 
wolves were, I believe, seen by several of our people, and 
some other animals described; but from the unintelligible 
style of the describers, I could not even determine whether 
they were such as I myself had seen, or of different kinds. 
Of these descriptions I shall insert one, as it is not unenter- 
taining. 
A seaman who had been out on duty declared that he 
had seen an animal about the size of, and much like a one- 
gallon cage. “It was,” says he, “as black as the devil, and 
had wings, indeed I took it for the devil, or I might easily 
have catched it, for it crawled very slowly through the 
grass.” After taking some pains, I found out that the 
animal he had seen was no other than the large bat. 
Of sea-fowl there were several species: gulls, shags, 
solan geese or gannets of two sorts, boobies, etc., and pelicans 
of an enormous size; but these last, though we saw many 
thousands of them, were so shy that we never got one, as 
were the cranes also, of which we saw several very large 
and some beautiful species. In the rivers were ducks 
which flew in very large flocks, but were very hard to come 
at; and on the beach were curlews of several sorts, some 
very like our English ones, and many small beach birds. 
The land birds were crows, very like if not quite the same 
as our English ones, most beautiful parrots and parroquets, 
white and black cockatoos, pigeons, beautiful doves, bustards 
and many others which did not at all resemble those of 
Europe. Most of these were extremely shy, so that it was 
with difficulty that we shot any of them. A crow in Eng- 
land, though in general sufficiently wary, is, I must say, a 
fool to a New Holland crow, and the same may be said of 
almost all if not all the birds in the country. The only 
ones we ever got in any plenty were pigeons, of which we 
met large flocks, and of which the men who were sent out 
on purpose would sometimes kill ten or twelve a day. They 
were beautiful birds, crested differently from any other 
pigeon I have seen. What can be the reason of this extra- 
ordinary shyness in the birds is difficult to say, unless 
perhaps the Indians are very clever in deceiving them, 
