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 Tasmanian aboriginals, now an extinct race of men.

A human voice was heard coming from the hills.
The two leaders of the expedition landed, taking with them a swan as an offering of friendship, and met an aboriginal man and two women.

The women ran off, but the man stayed and accepted the swan "with rapture." He was armed with three spears, but his demeanour was friendly.