Day Fifty Six
No location recorded
"At 2 am we ran into a fog-bank and the mist enveloped us completely. We squared the yards a bit at 11.45 am.
Bosun is laid up today. He did not get up at 8 am this morning and when the mate asked why he said he had a pain in his back as an excuse. The mate told the "Old Man" and he gave me some turpentine liniment to rub on his back.
The other watch squared in the yards at 7 pm this evening and the mist cleared. The mate has kept a look-out man on all day as he is terribly scared of ice-bergs. I think there is ice somewhere near as the weather has gone so much colder these last two days.
I am sorry to report two deaths today. The cockatoo lost at sea and one of the hens. The cockatoo was on one of the men's shoulders on the fo'castle head when it felt inclined for a flight. It chose a bad moment for it had no sooner spread its wings when a puff of wind caught it and it glided over the side and was seen no more. The hen at 2.40 pm was on the perch in the hen-coup but was five minutes later doing its death kicks on the floor of the coup. At 3 pm the steward began plucking it. Hold a post-mortem examination on it. It was found to have one egg of ordinary egg size and three smaller ones all shellless in its interior. The conclusion was it was egg-bound. Another theory by the steward was it had slipped off the perch and death was caused by internal injuries. The verdict was death from being egg-bound."