Yet one more allusion to the penguins and seals of the Angra de Sao Bras is of sufficient historical interest to be mentioned. The first Dutch expedition to Bantam weighed anchor on the 2nd of April, 1595, and on the 4th of August of the same year the vessels anchored in a harbour called 'Ague Sambras,' in eight or nine fathoms of water, on a sandy bottom. So many of the sailors were sick with scurvy--'thirty or thirty-three,' says the narrator, 'in one ship'--that it was necessary to find fresh fruit for them. 'In this bay,' runs the English translation of the narrative, 'lieth a small Island wherein are many birds called Pyncuins and sea Wolves, that are taken with men's hands.' In the original Dutch narrative by Willem Lodewyckszoon, published in Amsterdam in 1597, the name of the birds appears as 'Pinguijns.' [2] _Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama_. 2da edicao. Lisboa, 1861. Pp. 14 and 105. [3] Moseley, _Notes by a Naturalist on the 'Challenger,'_ p. 155. [4] _Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum_, by J. E. Gray. 2nd ed., p. 53. THE BANDA ISLANDS AND THE BANDAN BIRDS The islands of the Banda Sea, with the exception of Letti, Kisser, and Wetter, constitute the Ceram sub-group or the Moluccan group; the principal units are Buru, Amboyna, Great Banda, Ceram, Ceram Laut, Goram, Kur, Babar, and Dama. The Matabela Islands, the Tiandu Islands, the Ke Islands, and the Tenimber Islands also belong to the Ceram sub-group. We are only concerned with the Banda Islands, which are eight in number, and consist of four central islands in close proximity to one another, inclosing a little inland sea, and four outlying islets. The central islands are Lonthoir, or Great Banda, Banda Neira, Gounong Api, which is an active volcano, and Pisang. The remaining Banda Islands are Rozengain, which lies about ten miles distant to the south-east of Great Banda; Wai, at an equal distance to the west; Rhun, about eight miles west by south from Wai; and Suangi or Manukan, about seventeen miles north by east from Rhun. The Banda Islands are well known as the principal centre of the cultivation of the nutmeg. When the Dutch East India Company became the possessors of the islands in the beginning of the seventeenth century, they destroyed the nutmeg trees in all the islands under their jurisdiction, with the exception of those in Amboyna and the Banda Islands. By doing so they hoped to maintain the high value of these natural products.