This circumstance is perhaps less to be regretted than a deficiency in any other branch of natural knowledge.

The researches of some gentlemen among the first voyagers were particularly directed to botanical discoveries, and a work which is now preparing, in a style of uncommon accuracy and elegance by one of the most illustrious of them, will probably discover that there was little left undone, even in their short stay, towards completing that branch of enquiry.

Of quadrupeds the whole stock contained in the country appears to be confined to a very few species: Wolves have not been seen, though the tracks of them were so frequently thought to be detected on this coast by Captain Cook's party.

Birds are numerous, but they belong in general to classes already known to naturalists; a few drawings however, and specimens of both, have been sent over.

These, to gratify, as far as possible, the curiosity of those readers whose attention is particularly directed to natural history, have been engraved, and a short account of them is thrown together in this chapter.