A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
109
1773.
January.
honey-combed and spungy, and of a dirty colour. This continually thickened about us, so that the sea became very smooth, though the wind was fresh as before. An immense field of solid ice extended beyond it to the south, as far as the eye could reach from the mast-head. Seeing it was impossible to advance farther that way, Captain Cook ordered the ships to put about, and stood north-east by north, after having reached 67° 15′ south latitude, where many whales, snowy, grey, and antarctic petrels, appeared in every quarter.
Wednesd. 20.On the 19th and 20th we saw a bird, which a gentleman, who had been at Falkland's islands, called a Port-Egmont hen[1], and which proved to be the skua or great northern gull (larus catarractes), common in the high latitudes of both hemispheres. The appearance of this bird, was likewise construed into a prognostick of land; but our disappointments had already been so frequent in this respect, that we were not easily led to give credit to bare assertions. We saw a bird of this species again on the 27th, when we had a great variety of all kinds of petrels and albatrosses around us. It always soared up to a great height, perpendicularly over our heads, and looked down upon us, as it should seem with great attention, turning its head now on one side, and now on the other. This- ↑ This bird is mentioned in Lieutenant Cook's voyage in the Endeavour. See Hawkesworth, vol. II. p. 283.
was
