decided that the opening between this and Van Diemen's Land is a large
strait, this rapidity of tide and the long south-west swell that seems
continually running in upon the coast to the westward, will then be
accounted for." It is evident, therefore, that at this time Bass regarded
the certainty of there being a strait as a matter yet to "be decided." He
was himself thereafter to assist in the decision.

Though Bass does not give any particulars of aboriginals encountered at
Wilson's Promontory, it is apparent from an allusion in his diary that
some 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