Though his
instructions
from the Admiralty did include a search for the
"great southern
continent", he did not undertake the exhaustive
search required
for that mission until his second voyage. During this
first voyage,
Cook focused on the exploration of New Zealand and Australia.
Cook surveyed the east coast of Australia and
provided the world’s
first complete map of the continent. He wrote that
"New Holland,
or, as I have now called the eastern coast, New South Wales, is
of a larger extent than any other country in the
known world that
does not bear the name of a
continent."
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"An animal found on the coast
of
New Holland called Kanguroo"
from An
Account of the Voyages
... in the
Southern Hemisphere
... by Captain Cook.
London: Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell,
1773.
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The
naturalist John Gould later identified Cook’s species as
Macropus Major, the Great Grey Kangaroo. Cook provided his own
description:
"The
head, neck, and shoulders, are very small in proportion to the
other parts of the body; the tail is nearly as long as the body
… the fore-legs are kept bent close to the
breast, and seemed
to be of use only for digging: the skin is covered with a short
fur, of a dark mouse or grey colour excepting the
head and ears,
which bear a sight resemblance to those of a hare. This animal
is called by the natives Kanguroo."
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