1896. A ZOOLOGIST IN TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 177 



Punta Arenas bj^ way of St. Sebastian and Porvenir, and the whole 

 expedition started for the east of Tierra del Fuego. On New Year's 

 day, after a long and wearisome journey on horseback, we reached 

 Paramo, a small gold-mining settlement on the bay of St. Sebastian, 

 lat. 53° S., long. 68^ 15' W. During this journey I did not collect 

 much ; those familiar with this kind of travelling will understand that 

 after some ten or twelve hours' riding, without food or water, one 

 prefers to rest, on arriving late at night, at an estancia or some good 

 camping-place. The only collection of some importance that I made 

 along the northern and eastern coasts was at Gente Grande Bay, 

 where we spent Christmas, and where I had some time for dredging. 

 Here, too, I had opportunity to observe the guanacos [Atichenia 

 huanaco). These animals are rather abundant in Patagonia : in the 

 pampas near Punta Arenas they sometimes occur in herds of some 

 hundreds. Though they are found in the pampas district of Tierra 

 del Fuego, and even to the south of Lago Fagnano and Rio Azopardo^ 

 and, according to the minevos, in Navarino Island, yet they must be 

 regarded as comparatively scarce to the south of the Strait. While 

 the guanaco might, therefore, be considered as furnishing an argument 

 against Darwin's view before referred to, the ostrich {Rhea danvini) is 

 apparently an argument on the other side, it being found all over 

 Patagonia, though not to the south of the Strait, and being replaced 

 north of Rio Negro, lat. 40° S., by a closely-allied species, Rhea 

 amevicana. The puma, again (Pitma concolor), is common in the great 

 forests near Punta Arenas, where the Indians trade in its skin, but has 

 not been observed south of the Strait or in the archipelagoes. From the 

 eastern pampas of Tierra del Fuego I secured a few specimens of a 

 fox (Canis magellanicus), which occurs also in Patagonia, and a number 

 of Rodentia. The troublesome little ^' tuco-tnco'' {Ctenoiiiys viagellanicns} 

 is extremely abundant in the northern and eastern parts of Tierra del 

 Fuego, and in the pampas of southern Patagonia, being replaced 

 farther north by other species, C. brasiliensis, etc. It forms one of the 

 chief articles of food of the Onas Indians, whose women are very 

 skilful in catching it. These also I have never heard spoken of as 

 occurring south of Admiralty Sound, or in the southern and western 

 archipelagoes; they may, therefore, I think be considered as belonging 

 exclusively to the pampas of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. The 

 French expedition to Cape Horn brought back ten species of Rodentia, 

 most of them from Santa Cruz, and only four species from the Bay of 

 Orange. It will be interesting to see if any of those that we secured 

 from the east of Tierra del Fuego or from Punta Arenas are found to 

 be identical with those from the southern archipelago. 



The two weeks at Paramo I occupied chiefly in collecting insects 

 3ind playa -forms. The other members of our party left on January 8 

 for the mission station of Rio Grande, from which Nordenskiold 

 intended to start for the interior and the Cordilleras. Unable 

 to obtain a boat for dredging purposes, I paid a short visit to Rio 



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