MANY NOVEL INCIDENTS. 



463 



moted to the rank of lieutenant ; Charles Green was attached to 

 the ship in the capacity of astronomer, Joseph Banks and Solander 

 — the latter a Swede and a pupil of Linnaeus — in that of natural- 

 ists, Buchan as draughtsman, and Parkinson as painter. The 

 vessel sailed from Plymouth Sound, with a fair wind, on the 

 25th of August. 



The voyage to Rio Janeiro was enlivened by many incidents 

 now of quite ordinary occurrence, but novel and interesting to 

 navigators one hundred years ago. They saw flying-fish whose 

 scales had the color and brightness of burnished silver. They 

 caught a specimen of that species of mollusk which sailors call a 



poupoise. 



Portuguese Man-of-War, — a creature ornamented with exquisite 

 pink veins, and which spreads before the wind a membrane which 

 it uses as a sail. They observed that luminous appearance of 

 the sea now familiar to all, but then a startling novelty. They 

 were of opinion that it proceeded from some light-emitting animal : 

 they threw over their casting-net, and drew up vast numbers of 

 medusae, which had the appearance of metal heated to a glow 



