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Proceeding thus gaily along, with our yards squared and every stitch of canvas drawing fore and aft, in another couple of days or so the Cape pigeons and shearwaters began to come about the ship, showing that we were approaching the stormy region Mr Mackay had warned me of; and on the fourth night the sky ahead of us became overcast, while a lot of sheet and zig-a-zaggy "chain lightning," as sailors call it, told us to look out for squalls.
Those the officers did not want were given to the crew, who were in no ways particular as to the nature of the fresh meat they could procure. The shearwaters especially we found very good, particularly when made into pies. For the purpose of enabling us to make crust, a greater quantity of flour than usual was served out.
Some were shearwaters; some petrels; and there were several sorts of large fowls. We saw of these birds, especially pintado-birds, all the sea over from about 200 leagues distant from the coast of Brazil to within much the same distance of New Holland. The pintado is a southern bird, and of that temperate zone; for I never saw of them much to the northward of 30 degrees south.
The month of July set in more favourably; and, aided by fresh breezes, we advanced rapidly to the westward, attended daily by numerous fulmars and shearwaters. The Missionary brig had parted company on the 22d of June. We passed directly over that part of the ocean where the "Sunken Land of Buss" is laid down in the old, and continued in the Admiralty charts. Mr.
This bird was about the size of a pigeon, and proved to be a white-bellied petrel of the same kind as those seen in high latitudes, which are called shearwaters. He likewise brought a branch of a plant like the New Zealand tea-plant, and which at Van Diemen's land we had made use of for brooms.
Until 1909, the inhabitants consisted of the Laysan albatross, black-footed albatross, sooty tern, gray-backed tern, noddy tern, Hawaiian tern, white tern, Bonin petrel, two shearwaters, the red-tailed tropic bird, two boobies and the man-of-war bird. Laysan Island is two miles long by one and one-half miles broad, and at times it has been literally covered with birds.
On the 27th also some weeds swam by us, and the birds that had flown along with us all the way almost from Brazil now left us, except only 2 or 3 shearwaters. On the 28th we saw many weeds swim by us and some whales, blowing. On the 29th we had dark cloudy weather with much thunder, lightning, and violent rains in the morning; but in the evening it grew fair.
In the afternoon, the wind being westerly and blowing strong in squalls, some butterflies and other insects like what we call horseflies were blown on board of us. No birds were seen except shearwaters. Our distance from the coast of Brazil at this time was above 100 leagues. March. Sunday 2.
They filled our thoughts, our lives for the time: great cormorants and northern divers, flitting red-legged oyster-catchers, shags spreading their wings to the wind and sun, sea-parrots, murrs, razor-bills, gannets questing by ones and twos now poised, now dropping like plummets with a resounding splash; sandpipers and curlews dotting the beaches, and wading; tern, common gulls, herring-gulls, and kittiwakes, and, at nightfall, shearwaters popping from their holes and swimming and skimming around our boat as we headed for home.
We were certainly more than the Admiralty three miles from the land; but had scarcely lost sight of Guernsey, and were well within sight of the Caskets, when we fell in with the Shearwaters. They accompanied the steamer for some little way, at times flying close up, and I had an excellent opportunity of watching them both with and without my glass, and have therefore no doubt of the species.
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