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the volant species frequents the fresh waters in the interior of
Patagonia, and in the western channels is only represented by
an odd straggler. Mr. Cox, of Talcahuano, who has travelled
in Araucania and central Patagonia, mentions in his narrative,
that in the fresh-water lakes of the latter district there are two
different species of steamer-ducks, one of which possesses the
power of flight. Immature specimens, although differing in the
colour of the bill, and somewhat in plumage, from the adult
birds, need not be confounded with a second species. The largest
steamer-duck which I have come across weighed only 14 lbs.,
and although text books assign a much greater weight as the
extreme limit, I think I am right in saying that few heavier
birds are met with either in the Straits of Magellan or in the
western channels. The female forms a low, oval-shaped nest of
twigs, lined with a thick coating of down, and deposits therein
six large cream-coloured eggs, 3 f in. long, by 2^ in width. The
nest is usually placed on the ground, at the foot of an old tree,
some few yards from the beach, but in a place where the bush is
almost impenetrable to a human being.
Land shells must be exceedingly scarce. I met with representatives
of only four species, of which one, a specimen of Helix,
I found on the frond of a Hymenophyllum at Tom Bay. Two
others of the same genus were taken from the rotten trunk of
a tree in the same locality. At Port Henry, in the Trinidad
Channel, and other parts in the neighbourhood, I collected several
specimens of a species of Succinea, which clings to dead leaves
and decayed pieces of driftwood lying on the shore just above
high-water mark. These four species of shells have since been
described by Mr. Edgar Smith, of the British Museum, as new
to science. In a fresh-water lake, where I made some casts
of a light dredge, I obtained from the bottom of stinking mud
several examples of a large Unio shell, and some small shells
of the genus Chilinia. I afterwards found species of Unio in
a stream issuing from the lake. North of the English Narrows,
many pond snails of the genus Chilinia were also found abundantly
in the stream beds.
I have found only two species of fresh-water fish, Haplochiton
zebra, and a small Galaxias; and they inhabit most of the upland
lakes which are of any considerable extent. The former is a
smooth-skinned fish, with the general shape and fin arrangement
of a grayling, but with a dark scaleless skin. It averages half
a pound in weight, ranging up to three-quarters ; and although
it rose like a trout, we could not succeed in making it take
the artificial fly, but caught it readily with worm-bait. These
fish were also met with in mountain lakes far removed from
the sea, whither their ova were probably, in the first instance,
conveyed by cormorants. On one occasion Sir George Nares
caught a specimen of this fish in a brackish lagoon, which communicated
with the sea at high tide, so that it may have been
derived ffom a marine progenitor which possessed the power of
adapting itself to a fresh-water existence.
In the course of our survey of Concepcion Strait, we stopped
for six days, in the month of March, at Portland Bay, an anchorage
on the east side of the strait, and nearly opposite to Tom
Bay. On the forenoon of our third day, a party of natives
pulled in from the westward, with their canoe well-provisioned
with shell-fish, as if they were about making a long voyage.
There were three men, four women, three children, and four
dogs. They were provided with a good iron axe, bone-pointed
spears, a boat-rope made of plaited rushes, and other rude
implements. It was evident that this party had previously met
with some friendly vessel, for they readily came on board, and
poked about the ship. Two of us went on a visit to their
camp on the following day, but were received very ungraciously
by a villainous-looking old hag armed with a club, who deprecated
any attempt at landing on our part. We could only
examine the canoe, which we found to be twenty-two feet long,
four feet in beam amidships, and in other respects of the usual
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