484 FALKLAND LSLANDS. 



ling wild or half wild cattle should be adopted in different 

 countries, and that one method should not long ago have been 

 found the best. The bolas is used in the Argentine Republic 

 and the Falklands, but not, I believe, in Chile. The lasso is 

 always used with it. In California the lasso only is used, as 

 also in the Sandwich Islands, the inhabitants of which derive 

 their methods of cattle herding from the former country. 



In Brazil the cattle, as I have described,* are brought into 

 subjection by being tailed; the lasso is used, but not the bolas. 

 In Australia and New Zealand neither of these appliances is 

 used, but only the stock-whip. An experienced owner of large 

 herds of cattle in Australia tells me that he considers that 

 these various appliances are not really wanted, and that the 

 great art in driving cattle is to get them to move quite slowly, 

 and never to excite or terrify them, and that he can tell a good 

 manager at once by observing whether his cattle are quietly 

 and easily driven. There seem to be no differences in the 

 condition of the country in the various regions which should 

 render the lasso or bolas more necessary in some than in the 

 others. 



The bolas, t as is well known, is an apparatus consisting of 

 heavy balls of stone, metal, or wood fastened at the ends of 

 long thongs of raw hide. In the Patagonian Ostrich bolas, 

 only two balls are used ; for cattle and horses, three, one ball 

 being smaller than the others. The three thongs are brought 

 together at one knot. The bolas is held by the smaller ball, 

 and whirled round the head, and then thrown so as to entangle 

 the legs of the animal aimed at. 



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 generally succeed in 

 thus entangling them, and bringing them to the ground, and 

 their mothers always send out their boys when they want a 

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

 Harbour. 



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



* See pp. 85-88. 



f Mr. Darwin's "Journal of Researches," pp. 44 and III, in his 

 accounts of the bolas, calls it by this name, as also other authors, Musters 

 included. A hunter, however, from whom I bought one at Sandy Point, 

 and also the Falkland Islanders, said the name was not bolas. but 

 " boleaderos," or some word closely similar, and they considered the 

 word bolas incorrect, Possibly the name has changed; 



