Two native youths who had frequently left Governor Phillip’s house, in order to have their front teeth drawn, had now been absent several days for that purpose.  They were seen in a bay down the harbour on the 8th of February, where a considerable number of the natives were assembled, it was supposed not less than a hundred, including women and children.  Most of the men were painted, and it should seem that they were assembled for the purpose of drawing the front teeth from several men and boys.  Soon afterwards, the two youths returned to the governor’s; they had their heads bound round with rushes, which were split, and the white side was put outwards:  several pieces of reed were stuck through this fillet and came over the forehead; their arms were likewise bound round and ornamented in the same manner, and each had a black streak on his breast, which was broad at one end, and terminated in a point.  They had lost their front teeth, and considering their manner of drawing teeth in this country, it was not surprising to see that one of them had lost a piece of his jaw-bone, which was driven out with the tooth.

Both these boys appeared to be in pain, but they would not own it, and seemed to value themselves on having undergone the operation; though why it is performed, or why the females lose a part of the little finger, could not as yet be learnt.

The weather was very close and sultry, and the natives having fired the country for several miles round, the wind, which blew strong on the 12th, was heated to a very extraordinary degree, particularly at Rose-Hill, where the country was on fire for several miles to the northward and southward.

Great numbers of parroquets were picked up under the trees, and the bats, which had been seen frequently flying about Rose-Hill soon after the evening closed in, and were supposed to go to the southward every night, and return to the northward before the day broke, now appeared in immense numbers:  thousands of them were hanging on the branches of the trees, and many dropped down, unable to bear the burning winds.

The head of this bat strongly resembles that of a fox, and the wings of many of them extend three feet ten inches:  Governor Phillip saw one which measured upwards of four feet from the tip of each wing.  Some were taken alive, and would eat boiled rice, or other food readily out of the hand, and in a few days were as domestic as if they had been bred in the house:  the governor had one, a female, that would hang by one leg a whole day without changing its position; and in that pendant situation, with its breast neatly covered with one of its wings, it ate whatever was offered it, lapping out of the hand like a cat.  Their smell is stronger than that of a fox; they are very fat, and are reckoned by the natives excellent food.  From the numbers which fell into the brook at Rose-Hill, the water was tainted for several days, and it was supposed that more than twenty thousand of them were seen within the space of one mile.