Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0020
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[Page 20]
16.
in Search of the Southern Continent
month they came up to the ship in prodigious lively action leaping out of the water sometimes 2 or 3 feet high as nimbly as Bonetos immediately after them came a number of a larger sort quite black who movd very heavy in the water both these troops kept their course by the ship without taking much notice of her probably in pursuit of some prey
5.. Our old enemy Cape fly away entertaind us for three hours this morn all which time there were many opinions in the ship some said it was land & others Clouds which at last however plainly appeard. 2 Seals passd the ship asleep & 3 of the birds which Mr Gore calls Port Egmont hens, Larus Catarrhactes & says are a sure sign of our being near land they are something larger than a crow in flight much like one flapping their wings often with a slow motion their bodies & wings of a dark chocolate or soot colour under each wing a small broadish bar of dirty white which makes them so remarkable that it was is hardly possible to mistake them they are seen as he says all along the Coast of America & in Faulklands Isles I myself remember to have seen them at Terra del Fuego but by some accident did not note them down Just before sun set we were much entertaind by a shoal of Porpoises like those seen yesterday they kept in sight of the ship
[Margin note] Seals & Port Egmont hens