<HAP. ix,] WILD RABBITS. 139 



ro its fate. Captain Sulivan can so lar corroborate this curious account, 

 that he has several times found young foals dead, whereas he has never 

 found a dead calf. Moreover, the dead bodies of full-grown horses 

 are more frequently found, as if more subject to disease or accidents, 

 than those of the cattle. From the softness of the ground their hoofs 

 often grow irregularly to a great length, and this causes lameness. 

 The predominant colours are roan and iron-grey. All the horses bred 

 here, both tame and wild, are rather small sized, though generally in 

 good condition ; and they have lost so much strength, that they are 

 unfit to be used in taking wild cattle with the lazo : in consequence, 

 it is necessary to go to the great expense of importing fresh horses 

 from the Plata. At some future period the southern hemisphere pro- 

 bably will have its breed of Falkland ponies, as the northern has its 

 Shetland breed. 



The cattle, instead of having degenerated like the horses, seem, as 

 before remarked, to have increased in size ; and they are much more 

 numerous than the horses. Captain Sulivan informs me that they 

 vary much less in the general form of their bodies and in the shape 

 of their horns than English cattle. In colour they differ much ; and it 

 is a remarkable circumstance, that in different parts of this one small 

 island, different colours predominate. Round Mount Usborne, at a height 

 of from 1,000 to 1,500 feet above the sea, about half of some of the 

 herds are mouse or lead-coloured, a tint which is not common in other 

 parts of the island. Near Port Pleasant dark brown prevails, whereas 

 south of Choiseul Sound (which almost divides the island into two 

 parts), white beasts with black heads and feet are the most common : 

 in all parts black, and some spotted animals may be observed. Captain 

 Sulivan remarks, that the difference in the prevailing colours was so 

 obvious, that in looking for the herds near Port Pleasant, they appeared 

 from a long distance like black spots, while south of Choiseul Sound 

 they appeared like white spots on the hill-sides. Captain Sulivan 

 thinks that the herds do not mingle ; and it is a singular fact, that the 

 mouse-coloured cattle, though living on the high land, calve about a 

 month earlier in the season than the other coloured beasts on the lower 

 land. It is interesting thus to find the once domesticated cattle break- 

 ing into three colours, of which some one colour would in all proba- 

 bility ultimately prevail over the others, if the herds were left undisturbed 

 for the next several centuries. 



The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced, and has 

 succeeded very well; so that they abound over large parts of the 

 island. Yet, like the horses, they are confined within certain limits ; 

 lor they have not crossed the central chain of hills, nor would they 

 have extended even so far as its base, if, as the Gauchos informed me, 

 small colonies had not been carried there. I should not have supposed 

 that these animals, natives of northern Africa, could have existed in a 

 climate so humid as this, and which enjoys so little sunshine that even 

 wheat ripens only occasionally. It is asserted that in Sweden, which 

 any one would have thought a more favourable climate, the rabbit 

 cannot live out of doors. The first few pair, moreover, had here to 



