114 BAIIIA BLANCA, 



have become extinct, so may we suppose that the 

 species of plants have likewise been changed. 



These remarks, I may be permitted to add, di- 

 rectly bear on the case of the Siberian animals 

 preserved in ice. The firm conviction of the ne- 

 cessity of a vegetation possessing a character of 

 tropical luxuriance, to support such large animals, 

 and the impossibility of reconciling this with the 

 proximity of perpetual congelation, was one chief 

 cause of the several theories of sudden revolutions 

 of climate, and of overwhelming catastrophes, 

 which were invented to account for their entomb- 

 ment. I am far from supposing that the climate 

 has not changed since the period when those ani- 

 mals lived, which now lie buried in the ice. At 

 present I only wish to show, that as far as quantity 

 of food alone is concerned, the ancient rhinoceros- 

 es might have roamed over the steppes of central 

 Siberia (the northern parts probably being under 

 water) even in their pi'esent condition, as well as 

 the living rhinoceroses and elephants over the 

 Karros of Southern Africa. 



I will now give an account of the habits of some 

 of the more interesting birds which are common on 

 the wild plains of Noithern Patagonia ; and first 

 for the largest, or South American ostrich. The 

 ordinary habits of the ostrich are familiar to every 

 one. They live on vegetable matter, such as roots 

 and grass ; but at Bahia Blanca I have repeatedly 

 seen three or four come down at low water to the 

 extensive mud-banks which are then diy, for the 

 sake, as the Gauchos say, of feeding on small fish. 

 Although the ostrich in its habits is so shy, wary, 

 and solitary, and although so fleet in its pace, it is 

 caught without much difficulty by the Indian or 

 Gaucho armed with the bolas. When several 



