made us pay less attention to fishing. Here are,
however, plenty of muscles, not very large, but well tasted; and very good
celery is to be met with on several of the low islets, and where the
natives have their habitations. The wild-fowl are geese, ducks, sea-pies,
shags, and that kind of gull so often mentioned in this journal under the
name of Port Egmont hen. Here is a kind of duck, called by our people race-
horses, on account of the great swiftness with which they run on the water;
for they cannot fly, the wings being too short to support the body in the
air. This bird is at the Falkland Islands, as appears by Pernety's Journal.
The geese too are there, and seem to be very well described under the name
of bustards. They are much smaller than our English tame geese, but eat as
well as any I ever tasted. They have short black bills and yellow feet. The
gander is all white; the female is spotted black and white, or grey, with a
large white spot on each wing. Besides the bird above-mentioned, here are
several other aquatic, and some land ones; but of the latter not many.

From the knowledge which the inhabitants seem to have of Europeans, we may
suppose that they do not live here continually, but retire to the north
during the winter. I have often wondered that these people do not clothe
themselves better, since Nature has certainly provided materials. They
might line their seal-skin cloaks with the skins and feathers of aquatic
birds; they might make their cloaks larger, and employ the same skins for
other parts of clothing, for I cannot suppose they are scarce with them.
They were ready enough to part with those they had to our people, which
they hardly would have done, had they not known where to have got more. In
short, of all the nations I have seen, the Pecheras are the most wretched.
They are doomed to live in one of the most inhospitable climates in the
world, without having sagacity enough to provide themselves with such
conveniences as may render life in some measure more comfortable.

Barren as this country is, it abounds with a variety of unknown plants, and
gave sufficient employment to Mr Forster and his party. The tree, which
produceth the winter's bark; is found here in the woods, as is the holy-
leaved barberry; and some other sorts, which I know not, but I believe are
common in the straits of Magalhaens. We found plenty of a berry, which we
called the cranberry, because they are nearly of the same colo