62 Cruise of the "Alert" 



the volant species frequents the fresh waters in the interior of 

 Patagonia, and in the western channels is only represented by 

 an odd straggler. Mr. Cox, of Talcahuano, who has travelled 

 in Araucania and central Patagonia, mentions in his narrative, 

 that in the fresh-water lakes of the latter district there are two 

 different species of 'steamer-ducks, one of which possesses the 

 power of flight. Immature specimens, although differing in the 

 colour of the bill, and somewhat in plumage, from the adult 

 birds, need not be confounded with a second species. The largest 

 steamer-duck \vhich I have come across weighed only 14 Ibs., 

 and although text books assign a much greater weight as the 

 extreme limit, I think I am right in saying that few heavier 

 birds are met with either in the Straits of Magellan or in the 

 western channels. The female forms a low, oval-shaped nest of 

 twigs, lined with a thick coating of down, and deposits therein 

 six large cream-coloured eggs, 3f in. long, by 2 J in width. The 

 nest is usually placed on the ground, at the foot of an old tree, 

 some few yards from the beach, but in a place where the bush is 

 almost impenetrable to a human being. 



Land shells must be exceedingly scarce. I met with repre- 

 sentatives of only four species, of which one, a specimen of Helix, 

 I found on the frond of a Hymenophyllum at Tom Bay. Two 

 others of the same genus were taken from the rotten trunk of 

 a tree in the same locality. At Port Henry, in the Trinidad 

 Channel, and other parts in the neighbourhood, I collected several 

 specimens of a species of Succinea, which clings to dead leaves 

 and decayed pieces of driftwood lying on the shore just above 

 high-water mark. These four species of shells have since been 

 described by Mr. Edgar Smith, of the British Museum, as new 

 to science. In a fresh-water lake, where I made some casts 

 of a light dredge, I obtained from the bottom of stinking mud 

 several examples of a large Unio shell, and some small shells 

 of the genus Chilinia. I afterwards found species of Unio in 

 a stream issuing from the lake. North of the English Narrows, 



