Note 36 — A JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF VASCO DA GAMA IN 1497-99.
Ernest Georg Ravenstein translation
The MS. has Garçõees, a word not to be found in the dictionary, but evidently an augmentative of garça, a heron. Pimental, in his Arte de Navegar, mentions large birds with dark wings and white bodies as being met with a hundred leagues to the west of the Cape of Good Hope, which are known as Gaivotões.—Kopke.
The Gaivota, or gull, however, in no respect resembles a heron.