560 A NATURALIST OX THE "CHALLENGER." 



Many of the seamen living at Stanley constantly visit the 

 Straits of Magellan, and bring back with them very often 

 Fuegian bows and arrows for their children to play with. 

 The boys shoot at a mark with the stone-tipped arrows, and the 

 tips are soon broken off and lost. The stone arrow-heads thus 

 become scattered about the moorland anywhere near a habita- 

 tion, and before long they are sure to be picked up, being inde- 

 structible. It must then be remembered that they are not proofs 

 that the Falkland Islands were once inhabited by a savage race. 

 Difficulties of this kind are constantly occurring ; for example, 

 part of a New Zealand jade Mere has been found in Yorkshire ; 

 ancient Chinese Seals turn up in the ground in Ireland, and I 

 lately had a New Zealand fish-hook sent to me by a Canadian, 

 as found on the shores of a Canadian Lake and the work of North 

 American Indians. 



I wished very much to taste the luxury which Darwin par- 

 took of when travelling, the Falklands meat roasted with the 

 hide on " Carne con cuero,"* but on my asking for it everyone 

 spoke of the practice of so cooking food with horror, as only fit 

 for savages and almost with as much disgust as if I had sug- 

 gested cannibalism. No doubt this notion has been fostered by 

 the cattle owners, because of the great value of the hides, which 

 are necessarily spoilt by the process. 



Not far from Stanley Harbour there are rookeries of the 

 Magellan Jackass Penguin (Spheniscus Magdlanicus). The 

 birds make large and deep burrows in the peat banks on the 

 sea-shores, and large numbers make their burrows together, so 

 that the ground is hollowed out in all directions. 



Eound the mouths of their burrows and on the even surface 

 of the banks, between the holes, the birds lay out pebbles which 

 they must carry up from the sea-shore for the purpose. The 

 pebbles are of various colours, and the birds seem to collect them 

 from curiosity, at least there appears to be no other explanation 

 of the fact.f The edges of the birds' bills are excessively sharp, 

 and one of them bit me as I was trying to secure it, and cut a 

 strip out of my finger as clean as if it had been done with a 

 razor. 



* " Journal of Kesearches," p. 190. t See pages 156-159. 



