1 16 Cruise of the “A lert.” Experiment wuh Conaor.
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have been removed, the underlying fur is seen to be of a beautiful
golden yellow colour. The otters are obtained by sealers in a
great measure by bartering with native canoes (the Fuegians
catching them with dogs), and also by shooting them, as they
swim through the kelp close to the beach. Both the otter and
seal-skin are salted dry,— that is to say, each skin is spread out
flat, salt is sprinkled plentifully over the inside, and the skin is
then rolled up with the hair outside, and tied up into a round
bundle. The old fur seals are killed just as they are met with,
and without any regard to the preservation of the stock. The
sealers commonly call the females “ claphatches,” and the males
“ .wigs the skin of the former is much the more valuable of the
two. The sea lions (another species of seal) are seldom meddled
with; but occasionally a sealer, in default of the regular article,
will kill them for the sake of the oil, and take some of the
hides, ior which there is a certain demand for making “ machine
belting.”
Buckley, the master of the Fetis, told us that he had observed
that in the case of the fur seal there was an interval of only
one or two weeks between the date of parturition and that of
coupling, and that, in the case of the “ hair seal,” coupling took
place almost immediately after the young were brought forth.
If this be true, the period of gestation cannot be less than eleven
months.
Buckley presented the captain with a young fur seal— a male,
six weeks old— which had been caught on the rocks, and nursed
carefully by one of his crew, an Italian seaman, who had been
‘ bottle-feeding” it with milk, and had taught it to answer to the
call of a whistle. It trotted about our decks in a most lively
manner, its hind feet, when trotting or walking, being turned
forwards and outwards in the manner peculiar to seals of its
genus. On whistling to it, it uttered a strange cry— half wail,
half bark— and came to . the call like a dog. When taken up in
the arms and petted like a child, it lay quite still, dosed its eyes
and seemed to go off into a gentle sleep. It, unfortunately, died
on the following day— perhaps through fretting for its Italian
nurse— and its body then came into my hands as a zoological
specimen.
Dr. Fenton, whose acquaintance we had made on our first visit
just a year previously, was still residing at Sandy Point as medical
officer of the settlement, and, with great good nature, put his
house and horses at our disposal. He told me of an experiment
he had been trying on the flying powers of a condor, which
had been caught alive. He perforated the quills of the wing
and tail feathers, so as to allow the ingress and egress of air,
and on then throwing the bird up in the air found that it could
neither fly nor soar. The inference is that the bird derives its
buoyancy in a great measure from the formation of a vacuum
m the quills of these feathers, and consequently, on air being
admitted, the flapping of the wings, unaided by the buoyancy
derived from the rarefied air, was insufficient either to raise
or support the bird’s weight. If this theory be correct, it is
probable that the mechanism by which this vacuum is produced
IS actuated by the wing muscles, which thus discharge a twofold
office.
From the 13th of January to the 25 th of March, after leaving
Sandy Point, we proceeded to the western part of Magellan
Straits, where we were for about nine weeks, occupied in making
additions to the old surveys, principally in the narrow and tortuous
part of the Strait which is called the “ Crooked Reach.” The
scenery here is remarkably fine, and on a dry clear day— an event,
however, of rare occurrence— one can fully realize the truth of old
Pigafetta’s remark, that “ there is not in the world a more beautiful
country, or better strait, than this one.”
We made several stays, each of a day’s duration, at Tilly Bay,
a small land-locked anchorage on the north shore of Santa Ines
Island, and immediately opposite to the mouth of the Jerome
Channel, which leads into the Otway water. A t the head of the
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