irst
entering it in the whaleboat, and to the correct judgment he had formed,
from various indications, of the existence of a wide opening between Van
Diemen's Land and New South Wales."

Throughout this voyage we find Bass expending his abundant energies in
the making of inland excursions whenever an opportunity occurred. To take
a boat up rivers, to cut through rough country, to climb, examine soil,
make notes on birds and beasts, and exercise his enquiring mind in all
directions, was his constant delight.

The profusion of wild life upon the coasts and islands explored during
the voyage astonished the travellers. Seals were seen in thousands,
sea-birds in hundreds of millions. Flinders' calculation regarding the
sooty petrels has already been quoted. Black swans were observed in great
quantities. Bass, for example, stated that he saw three hundred of these
stately birds within a space a quarter of a mile square. The Roman poet
Juvenal could think of no better example of a thing of rare occurrence
than a black swan:

"Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno."

But here black swans could have been cited in a simile illustrating
profusion. Bass quaintly stated that the "dying song" of the swan, so
celebrated by poets, "exactly resembled the creaking of a rusty ale-house
sign on a windy day." The remark is not so pretty as, but far more true
than, that of the bard who would have us believe that the dying swan:

"In music's strains breathes out her life and verse,
And, chaunting her own dirge, rides on her watery hearse."

The couplet of Coleridge is vitiated by the same error, but may merit
commendation for practical wisdom:

"Swans sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing
Should certain persons die before they sing."

Flinders also saw from three to five hundred black swans on the lee side
of one point; and so tame were they that, as the Norfolk passed through
the midst of them, one incautious bird was caught by the neck.

Bass went ashore on Albatross Island to shoot. He was forced to fight his
way up the cliffs against the seals, which resented the intrusion; and
when he got to the top he was compelled "to make a road with his club
among the albatross. These birds were sitting upon their nests, and
almost covered the surface of the ground, nor did they otherwise derange
themselves for their new visitors than to peck at their legs as they
passed by."

In the Derwent Bass and Flinders encountered Tasm