lOi ■ FALKj^AND islands. [cnAV. it„ 



West Falkland. I have no doubt it is a peculiar sp'^cies. and 

 confined to this arcIiipela<^o ; because many sealers, Gauchos, 

 and Indians, wlio have visited these islands, all maintain that no 

 such animal is found in any part of South America. Molina, 

 from a similarity in habits, thouglit that this was the same with 

 his " culpeu ;" * but I have seen both, and they are quite distinct. 

 These wolves are well known, from Byron's account of their 

 tameness and curiosity, wliicli the sailors, wlio ran into tlie 

 water to avoid them, mistook for fierceness. To this day their 

 maimers remain the same. Tliey have been observed to enter a 

 tent, and actually pull some meat from beneath the head of a 

 sleeping- seaman. The Gauchos also have frequently in tlie. 

 evening killed them, by holding out a piece of meat in one hand, 

 and in the other a knife ready to stick them. As far as I am 

 aware, there is no other instance in any part of the world, of so 

 ymall a mass of broken land, distant from a continent, possessing 

 so large an aboriginal quadruped peculiar to itself. Their num- 

 bers iiave rapidly decreased ; they are already banished from tliat 

 half of the island wiiicli lies to the eastward of the neck of land 

 between St. Salvador Bay and Berkeley Sound. Witliin a very 

 few years after these islands shall have become regularly settled, 

 in all probability this fox will be classed with the dodo, as an 

 animal which has perished from the face of the earth. 



At night (I7th) we slept on the neck of land at the head of 

 Choiseul Sound, which forms the south-west peninsula. The. 

 valley was pretty well sheltered from the cold wind ; but there 

 was very little brushwood for fuel. The Gauchos, however, soon 

 found what, to my great surprise, made nearly as hot a fire jus 

 coals ; this was the skeleton of a bullock lately killed, from which 

 tlie flesh had been picked by the carrion-hawks. Tiiey told me 

 that in winter they often killed a beast, cleaned the flesh from tlie 

 bones with their knives, and then M'ith these same bones roasted 

 the meat for their suppers. 



\SiIi. — It rained during nearly the whole day. At niglit we 

 managed, however, with our saddle-cloths to keep ourselves 

 pretty well dry and warm ; but the ground on wliich we sle])t 

 was on each occasion nearly in the state of a bog, and there was 



" The "cdpeu" is the Canis Magellanicus brought home by Captuia 

 Khig from the Strait of ftlagellan. It is common in Chile. 



