492 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



On our return to the Straits we remained in the eastern part 

 till the 9th of March, when we left Sandy Point for the season, 

 and proceeded first westwards through the Straits, and then 

 north through the channels leading up from the western part 

 of the Straits of Magellan to the Gulf of Penas, than which it is 

 hardly possible to conceive regions more destitute of animal life, 

 many portions in their utter dreariness an embodiment of the 

 valley of the shadow of death — no living creature to be seen, the 

 land rising high and black on either side, and rain coming down 

 in torrents and as if it would never cease. The northern chan- 

 nels are rather more life-like, and there are evidences in their 

 fauna and flora of an approximation to that of the Chonos archi- 

 pelago and Chiloe. The Kingfisher, of which I sent home a 

 specimen last year from Port Gallant, is rather plentiful ; and a 

 good many Cormorants, Steamer-Ducks, and Gulls are to be 

 seen. Our object at this time was to reach Chiloe, there to 

 provision and coal ; and we emerged into the Gulf of Penas on 

 the evening of the 22nd of March, and very soon after encoun- 

 tered a heavy gale, which we seem to experience now wherever 

 we go. The 27th was a beautifully calm day, and we enjoyed 

 a most remarkable spectacle. The ship was hardly moving 

 through the water, and flocks of Albatroses were peacefully 

 resting on the water in its immediate vicinity. At one time 

 about twenty were close astern, growling hoarsely occasionally 

 as they fought over the garbage which was fx'om time to time 

 thrown out. Several were taken on baited hooks, their radii 

 being in request with smokers as pipe-stems. They had been 

 feeding on Cuttle-fish of the genus Loligo or Ovimastreptes. 

 The largest caught measured 10 feet 9 inches in expanse of 

 wing. In skinning one specimen, when removing the integu- 

 ment from the abdomen and legs, I found on either side a su- 

 perficial muscle, which seems to act as a tensor of the aponeu- 

 rosis of the muscles below the knee. Though I have now 

 skinned and partially dissected a considerable number of birds, I 

 do not remember noticing it before ; and there is no mention of 

 it in Prof. Owen^s 'Anatomy of Vertebrates.^ It arises from the 

 cartilage at the tip of the pubis, and from a deep-seated muscle 

 arising from the pubis by an aponeurosis about three-fourths 



