28 CIJONOS ARCHIPELAGO. 



redly have chosen a most comical little creature 

 for their pi'ophet. An allied species, but rather 

 larger, is called by the natives " Guid-guid" (Pte- 

 roptochos Tarnii), and by the English the barking- 

 bird. This latter name is w^ell given, for I defy 

 any one at first to feel certain that a small dog is 

 not yelping somewhere in the forest. Just as with 

 the cheucau, a person will sometimes hear the bark 

 close by, but in vain may endeavour by watching, 

 and with still less chance by beating the bushes, 

 to see the bird ; yet at other times the guid-guid 

 fearlessly comes near. Its manner of feeding and 

 its general habits are very similar to those of the 

 cheucau. 



On the coast,* a small, dusky-coloured bird (Ope- 

 tiorhynchus Patagonicus) is very common. It is 

 remarkable from its quiet habits : it lives entirely 

 on the sea-beach, like a sandpiper. Besides these 

 birds only few others inhabit this broken land. In 

 my rough notes I describe the strange noises, which, 

 although frequently heard within these gloomy for- 

 ests, yet scarcely disturb the general silence. The 

 yelping of the guid-guid and the sudden whew- 

 whew of the cheucau sometimes come from afar 

 off, and sometimes from close at hand ; the little 

 black wren of Tierra del Fuego occasionally adds 

 its cry ; the creeper (Oxyurus) follows the intruder 

 screaming and twittering ; the humming-bird may 

 be seen every now and then darting from side to 

 side, and emitting, like an insect, its shrill chirp ; 

 lastly, from the top of some lofty tree, the indistinct 

 but plaintive note of the white-tufted tyrant fly- 



* I may mention, as a proof of how great a difference there is 

 between the seasons of the wooded and the open parts of this 

 coast, that on September 20th, m lat. 34°, these birds had young 

 ones in the nest, while among the Chonos Islands, three months 

 later in the summer, they were only laying ; the difference in lat- 

 itude between these two places being about 700 miles. 



