In various Logs, elsewhere described, the Bay has been called _Sting Rea_ or _Ray Harbour_, and the reason stated in Cook's own words, and those of his chief officer, was on account of the numbers of the fish _Stingray_, _Skeats_, or _Skate_. Corner's, May 6th, says, on the contrary: "The great quantity of _plants_ Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander found in this place occasioned my giving it the name of _Botany Bay_." On May 30th we read of: "The same sort of Water Fowl as we saw in _Botany Bay_." We cannot avoid expressing surprise at finding that the gentleman whose duty it was to fill up the vacant spaces, purposely left open for the insertion of names of places, was not always correct in orthography. He may have intended always to write _Botany_, but varied it in _Bottany_, _Bottony_, _Bottonest_, _Botony_, _Botanist_. He is not sure even when describing "which I called _Port Jackson_" as he is led to write, "it lies 3 Leag^s to the Northw^d of _Botóny Bay_." When, however, we come carefully to examine the full original paragraph about Botany Bay, we seem to understand the mode of action. The alteration was not made by the first copyist of the _Log_, nor by one particular person afterwards. There may have been some doubt even then about the settlement, or else why the erasure of one way of spelling, the substitution of another, and even traces of further erasure before final arrangement of name. It was this that excited my suspicions. I was very candid in statement to some officials at the Admiralty of my honest belief that there had been some foul play in London. Later on, when I had again, with others, looked at the real journals in the British Museum, regarded, and copied, the _Logs_ found at the Deptford Victualling Yard, and especially had made personal inspection for three days at Sunderland of a Log given by Cook himself to his old Admiral, Sir Hugh Palliser, my doubts of this Log were confirmed. Let us now refer to the original Corner's Log, transported by purchase from Mr. Corner, to New South Wales, where, if not further affected, it will be seen as I state. If the reader mentally divide the Botany Bay story, under May 6, he will discover first the usual Log transcriber. In the space which he left, _by somebody's order_, he would perceive quite a different hand ("plants Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander"). Then returns the first hand, "found in this place occasioned my giving it the name of" ----. Another space is filled with a half erased second-hand "Botóny" followed by the word in original "_bay_." In a tracing I took some years ago, under head of May 6, I read: "appeared to be safe anchorage which I called" (in original hand); but in the space adjoining, in the second hand I read: "_Port Jackson_." Then, as usual, the first resumed: "it lies 3 Leag^s to the Northw^d of." After a space, or, rather, within the space, is a bungling "_Bottony_" Bay.