Seals, or sea-bears, were pretty numerous. They were smaller than those at Staten Land: Perhaps the most of those we saw were females, for the shores swarmed with young cubs. We saw none of that sort which we call lions; but there were some of those which the writer of Lord Anson's voyage describes under that name; at least they appeared to us to be of the same sort; and are, in my opinion, very improperly called lions, for I could not see any grounds for the comparison.
Here were several flocks of penguins, the largest I ever saw; some which we brought on board weighed from twenty-nine to thirty-eight pounds. It appears by Bougainville's account of the animals of Falkland Islands, that this penguin is there; and I think it is very well described by him under the name of first class of penguins. The oceanic birds were albatrosses, common gulls, and that sort which I call Port Egmont hens, terns, shags, divers, the new white bird, and a small bird like those of the Cape of Good Hope, called yellow birds; which, having shot two, we found most delicious food.
All the land birds we saw consisted of a few small larks, nor did we meet with any quadrupeds. Mr Forster indeed observed some dung, which he judged to come from a fox, or some such animal. The lands, or rather rocks, bordering on the sea-coast, were not covered with snow like the inland parts; but all the vegetation we could see on the clear places was the grass above-mentioned. The rocks seemed to contain iron. Having made the above observations, we set out for the ship, and got on board a little after twelve o'clock, with a quantity of seals and penguins, an acceptable present to the crew.
It must not, however, be understood that we were in want of provisions: we had yet plenty of every kind; and since we had been on this coast, I had ordered, in addition to the common allowance, wheat to be boiled every morning for breakfast; but any kind of fresh meat was preferred by most on board to salt. For my own part, I was now, for the first time, heartily tired of salt meat of every kind; and though the flesh of the penguins could scarcely vie with bullock's liver, its being fresh was sufficient to make it go down. I called the bay we had been in, Possession Bay. It is situated in the latitude of 54° 5' S., longitude 37° 18' W., and eleven leagues to the east of Cape North. A few miles to the west of Possession Bay, between it and Cape Buller, lies the Bay of Isles, so named on account of several small isles lying in and before it.