e were seen. The sentence in which he mentions them is curious for its
classification of them with the other animals observed, a classification
biologically justifiable, no doubt, but hardly usual. "The animals," he
wrote, "have nothing new in them worth mentioning, with these exceptions;
that the men, though thieves, are kind and friendly, and that the birds
upon Furneaux's Land have a sweetness of note unknown here," i.e., at
Port Jackson. He would not, in February, have heard the song-lark, that
unshamed rival of an English cousin famed in poetry, and the sharp
crescendo of the coach-whip bird would scarcely be classed as "sweet."
"The tinkle of the bell-bird in the ranges may have gratified his ear;
but the likelihood is that the birds which pleased him were the
harmonious thrush and the mellow songster so opprobiously named the
thickhead, for no better reason than that collectors experience a
difficulty in skinning it.* (* Mr. Chas. L. Barrett, a well known
Australian ornithologist, and one of the editors of the Emu, knows the
Promontory well, and he tells me that he has no doubt that the birds
which pleased Bass were the grey shrike thrush (Collyriocincla harmonica)
and the white-throated thickhead (Pachycephala gutturalis.))

The cruise from the Promontory eastward was commenced on February 2nd.
Eight days later, the boat being in no condition for keeping the sea with
a foul wind, Bass beached her not far from Ram Head. He had passed Point
Hicks in the night. Cape Howe was rounded on the 15th, and on the 25th
the boat entered Port Jackson.

Bass and his men had accomplished a great achievement. In an open boat,
exposed to the full rigours of the weather in seas that are frequently
rough and were on this voyage especially storm-lashed, persecuted
persistently by contrary gales, they had travelled twelve hundred miles,
principally along an unknown coast, which they had for the first time
explored. Hunter in his official despatch commented on Bass's
"perseverance against adverse winds and almost incessant bad weather,"
and complimented him upon his sedulous examination of inlets in search of
secure harbours. But there can be no better summary of the voyage than
that penned by Flinders, who from his own experience could adequately
appreciate the value of the performance. Writing fifteen years later,
when Bass had disappeared and was believed to be dead, his friend said:--

"It should be remembered that Mr. Bass sail