106 Cruise of the "Alert" 



but waddles about like an old farmyard duck. The petrel above 

 referred to was the little diver {Pelecanoides urinatrix), a bird not 

 uncommon in the channels, but yet very difficult to obtain. 

 During the previous season on the surveying ground, Sir George 

 Nares, who was the first to notice it, reported one day that he 

 had seen one of his old arctic friends, the "little auk," which 

 indeed in its habits it strongly resembles. It usually (at all 

 events during the daytime) sits on the surface of the water, and 

 on the least sign of danger takes a long dive like a grebe, and 

 on rising to the surface again flies away some few hundred yards, 

 keeping all the while close to the surface. Its flight is like that 

 of the grebe, but more feeble. In the Falkland Islands the 

 habits of this bird are somewhat different. The bill is peculiarly 

 broad and of a dark horn colour, the breast and belly of a dull 

 grey, and the upper parts black ; the tarsi and feet lavender. 

 The body is short and plump, and is provided with dispropor- 

 tionately short wings. Speaking of this bird, Mr. Darwin says 

 that it " offers an example of those extraordinary cases of a bird 

 evidently belonging to one well-marked family, yet both in its 

 habits and its structure allied to a very distant tribe." 



There was a "rookery" of the red-cered cormorant (Phala- 

 crocorax magellanicus) near Cockle Cove, but the nests were 

 placed on almost inaccessible ledges in the face of the rocky 

 cliff, which was streaked all over with vertical white lines from 

 the droppings of the birds. This species of cormorant is very 

 abundant throughout all the channels. A second species, a jet 

 black bird {Phlacrocorax imperialist^ builds its nest in trees ; 

 and there was a characteristic " rookery " of this tree cormorant 

 at Port Bermejo, where we anchored in the month of November. 

 It was in a quiet sequestered place, where two old and leafless 

 beech trees overhung the margin of an inland pond. The nests 

 were constructed of dried grass, and were placed among the 

 terminal branches of the trees. These funereal-looking birds, 

 sitting on or perching by their scraggy nests on the bare 



