The Natural History of Selborne

On this day arrived here from India Mr Charles Etty. In his passage out, the ship he belonged to was burnt off the Island of Ceylon. He came back from Madras to the Cape of good hope in the Exeter man of war; & from thence worked his passage in the Content transport, which brought him to Spit-head. The Exeter was so crazy, & worn-out, that they broke her up, & burnt her at the Cape. Mr Ch Etty brought home two species of Humming-birds which he shot at the Cape of good hope; & two Ostrich eggs from the same place: several fine shells from Joanna island & several turtle’s eggs from the Isle of Ascension. Also the Graphalium squarrosum, a curious Cudweed, from a Dutch-mans garden at the Cape. Turtle’s eggs are round, & white; a little variegated with fine streaks of red, & as large as the eggs of a kite; perhaps larger.