Home of the Water- Birds — The "Coypo." 97 



"terotero" of the Pampas so graphically described by Darwin) 

 was for ever scaring the other peacefully-disposed birds, and at 

 the same time invoking maledictions from the sportsman. The 

 plumage of this bird is very handsome, and the bright crimson 

 colour of the iris and eyelid during life gave it a strange fasci- 

 nating appearance, which can hardly be realized from a stuffed 

 specimen. 



When the first ebb of the tide left bare the mudbanks in the 

 lagoons, the gulls and curlews collected in vast numbers for 

 their diurnal meal. Of the gulls only three kinds were seen, 

 viz., L. DominicanitSy L. Glancodes, and L, Macidipennis. The latter 

 were in various conditions of plumage ; some birds having a deep 

 black hood, and others with a head almost entirely white, while 

 between these two extremes, there was every gradation. The 

 turkey-buzzards derived a plentiful supply of food from the 

 bodies of fish stranded on the beach. For some reason or other 

 dogfish were constantly coming to grief in this way, bodies of 

 fish, two and three feet long, being met with sometimes, all along 

 the beach, at average distances of about one hundred yards 

 apart. 



One day we made an excursion up the river Andalien, which 

 flows into Talcahuano Bay, near the village of Penco, and which 

 at high tide is navigable for boats to a distance of seven miles 

 from its mouth. Our main object was to see something of the 

 nutria — a large rodent {Myopotamus coypu), which is common in 

 some of the rivers of southern Chili, and which the natives call 

 " Coypo." In a deep, narrow, ditch-like tributary of the Andalien, 

 we came across several of these animals, swimming and diving 

 about, some half-immersed clumps of bushes. At first sight their 

 manner of swimming and diving would lead one to imagine that 

 they were otters, but on closer inspection the broad muzzle with 

 its long bristly whiskers, and foxy-red hair, reveal their true cha- 

 racter. The " coypo " is distinguished from its northern ally, the 

 beaver, in having the scaly tail round instead of flat, and from the 



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