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.