We first discovered the whale by the fowls; for indeed I did never see so
many fowls at once in my life before, their numbers being inconceivably
great: they were of divers sorts, in bigness, shape and colour. Some were
almost as big as geese, of a grey colour, with white breasts, and with
such bills, wings, and tails. Some were pintado-birds, as big as ducks,
and speckled black and white. 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 pintado-bird
is as big as a duck; but appears, as it flies, about the bigness of a
tame pigeon, having a short tail, but the wings very long, as most
sea-fowls have; especially such as these that fly far from the shore, and
seldom come nigh it; for their resting is sitting afloat upon the water;
but they lay, I suppose, ashore. There are three sorts of these birds,
all of the same make and bigness, and are only different in colour. The
first is black all over: the second sort are grey, with white bellies and
breasts. The third sort, which is the true pintado, or painted-bird, is
curiously spotted white and black. Their heads and the tips of their
wings and tails are black for about an inch; and their wings are also
edged quite round with such a small black list; only within the black on
the tip of their wings there is a white spot seeming as they fly (for
then their spots are best seen) as big as a half-crown. All this is on
the outside of the tails and wings; and, as there is a white spot in the
black tip of the wings, so there is in the middle of the wings which is
white, a black spot; but this, towards the back of the bird, turns
gradually to a dark grey. The back itself, from the head to the tip of
the tail, and the edge of the wings next to the back, are all over
spotted with fine small, round, white and black spots, as big as a silver