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voyage round the world. Unfortunately 1 have been unable to ob- 
tain Freycinet’s account of this voyage, which contains a section on 
the zoology by Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard. 
A second account of the same voyage is contained in the 
“Promenade autour du Monde/’ by Arago, of which an English 
translation was published. The expedition entered Sharks Bay on 
Spetember 12, 1818, and remained till about September 24. 
Arago mentions “a prodigious number of whales sporting on 
the waves, approaching the vessel, which they sometimes struck 
with their enormous tails, and spouting into the air brilliant jets of 
water that reflected the colours of the rainbow. Several monstrous 
sharks likewise followed, in a constant and regular course, the light 
track of the ship; while a few turtle of prodigious size seemed, 
with their hard shell, to brave the murderous teeth of the most 
voracious of fish.” 
“A few birds of prey skimmed, with rapid wings, the flats 
washed by the waves. In the Bay of Seals we saw a prodigious 
number of those animals, which contended, no doubt, with clouds 
of pelicans assembled at the south point of the cove, for the sov- 
ereignty of the place, which I yield to them with all my heart. When 
we discharged our pieces we were answered by a prodigious number 
of birds, in plumage resembling our ducks, and in voice our ravens.” 
The reefs were studded with oysters. 
On Peron Peninsula “we saw only a single kangaroo. I saw 
two birds, that I took for cassowaries, to 'which I gave chase; but 
to my regret I could not come up with them.” “I was attacked by 
such a prodigious number of flies, assailing my eyes and my mouth, 
that I had all the difficulty in the world to protect myself against 
them.” “The sun sets; everything is dead. The myriads of flies 
tfiat devoured us have disappeared; no insect wings through the 
air. The sun reappears, the air is again peopled.” 
Captain King left Sydney on his second surveying voyage on 
the 8th May, 1819, and after passing up the east coast and through 
Torres Straits spent some time examining the coast of what is now 
the Northern Territory. The “Mermaid” entered Western Aus- 
tralian waters on September 16th at Lacrosse Island at the mouth 
of Cambridge Gulf, and from this point made a survey of the coast 
westward as far as Cape Voltaire, which point she left for Timor 
on October 16th. The following animals were met with on this 
portion of the Kimberley coastline. 
A few kangaroos were seen and their tracks noticed on several 
occasions and kangaroo-rats were observed in Cambridge Gulf and 
Admiralty Gulf. Tracks of dingoes were also seen. At Adolphus 
Island in Cambridge Gulf “the noise made by the chain cable, in 
running through the hawse-hole, put to flight a prodigious number 
of bats that were roosting in the mangrove bushes; and which, flying 
