558 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



The boys at the Falkland Islands have invented a small 

 bolas in which the large knuckle-bones of cattle are used as the 

 larger balls, and a smaller bone from the foreleg, as the small 

 ball for the hand. They use the bone bolas for catching wild 

 geese, creeping up to a flock and throwing the bolas at the birds 

 on the wing as they rise. They constantly succeed in thus 

 entangling them, and bringing them to the ground, and 

 their mothers always send out their boys when they want a 

 sroose, so that the birds are seldom shot at around Darwin 

 Harbour. 



Flocks of the geese were to be seen there feeding on the grass 

 close to the houses, looking just like farm-yard geese. The birds 

 take no notice of a gun, but I soon found that they were very 

 quick at seeing a bolas when I carried one, well-knowing that 

 they were going to be molested. I could not catch one with the 

 bone bolas, though I came very near it, and should have suc- 

 ceeded with a little practice. The bone bolas comes curiously 

 near that of the Esquimaux in structure. The Esquimaux bolas, 

 used also for catching birds, has more than three balls, and these 

 are made of ivory. 



Near Darwin Harbour, I found some .Dipterous insects with 

 rudimentary wings, a species of Fly (Muscidce) and a species of 

 Gnat (Tipididoe), which are of especial interest because similar. 

 Qiptera incapable of flight, occur, as already described,* at 

 Kerguelen's Land, and the Fly at least appears to be of the same 

 genus as one of the Kerguelen Flies ; a genus which has been 

 hitherto found nowhere else but in Kerguelen's Land and 

 Marion Island. It is of importance to find further connections 

 between Fuegia and the distant Kerguelen's Land, the con- 

 nections between which regions in the matter of the flora, were 

 so long ago demonstrated by Sir Joseph Hooker. 



The Fly has small rudiments of wings. It appears closely 

 allied to Amalopteryx maritima (Eaton) of Kerguelen's Land, 

 and corresponds closely to that insect in its habits. The flies 

 were found near Darwin Harbour, only on the sea-coast, in 

 hollows under overhanging slabs of the sandstone rocks, and 

 sheltering in crevices. They spring nimbly like fleas or small 



* See pages 192-193. 



