^5 OVALLE*S HISTORICAL RELATION OF CHILE. 



very hard to take ; for though they wound them with fhot in many places, yet if they 

 do not hit them in the head, or the ftomach, they do not yield : they are as big 

 as a colt, and have a lion's head, with a perfedb mane ; which the females of them 

 have not, neither are they above half as big as the males, and have a thinner Ikin. 

 Thofe who have failed through the ftraights, talk much of thefe fea-lions, and do alfo 

 mention many other forts of fifhes which they took there, fome of lixteen feet long» 

 very favoury and good to eat.' Antonio de Herrera fays, that there are fifties taken in 

 Santa Maria, out of whofe eyes they take a fort of coarfe pearl, which have a glofs 

 like the true ones, and are worn by the women ; and if, as they are foft, they were a 

 little hard, they would be better than pearls. 



The fea-wolves or feals, which are found on all the coafts, are innumerable. I 

 have feen whole rocks covered with them, and they lay even upon one another, fo as 

 fome of them rolled down into the fea again, there not being room for fo many : they 

 are as big as calves, and make a noife like them. 



Antonio de Herrera, in the voyage of Magellan, fays, that in the river of the Crofs, 

 in the Straights, they took one fo large, that without his head, flcin and fat, he weighed 

 nineteen Caftillan Arrobas. The Indians take them for their fkins, which are very 

 hard and ftrong, and fome eat their flefti. As to the plenty of the ordinary fifli of 

 thofe feas, the authors already cited fpeak very advantageoufly of their kinds, parti- 

 cularly William Scowten, who coming with his fleet to the ifland of Juan Fernandes, 

 in' thirty-three degrees and forty-eight minutes, the quantity of fifli they met with 

 was fo great, that in a very little time they catched a great quantity of Robalos, 

 which is the beil and mod wholefome fifli of all thofe parts. They did not take 

 them with nets, becaufe they had not time to land, but with hooks at fea, by the 

 ftiip's fide, and that as fad as they could throw in and pull up. 



What I myfelf have feen, is in the great lake of Rapel, all the- fides of it 

 covered with Pejereges, by the vaft quantity of them which came upon the coaft, 

 as the droves of pilchards by the bay of Conception, and in Chiloe, fo that they 

 take them with blankets. I have feen the fame droves of tunny-fifli, which come 

 leaping over one another's backs, as if there were not room for them ; and indeed, that 

 climate being fo favourable to multiplication in all animals on ftiore, as fliall be 

 fliewed in its proper place, it cannot well be otfierwife as to the fifties. 



CHAP. X^m.-'Of the Birds of Chile. 



THE birds and fifties feem to be brothers of the fame Venter, the Author of nature 

 having created them both out of the element of water ; and therefore, to difpatch all 

 the creatures of this country, having treated of the firfl:, it feems that the chain of an 

 orderly narration obliges us to fay fomething of the others. To fpeak generally, it 

 may be truly faid of the air of that hemifphere, that it has a great advantage over the 

 earth, though fo fertile, fo rich, and fo delicious, as we have reprefented it ; for though it 

 is truCj that it now produces the animals and fruits of Europe, with fuch an increafe 

 as is wonderful, yet it cannot be denied, that before the Spaniards carried thither the 

 feeds and animals which are now fo multiplied, (for they had them not in any fort, 

 though perhaps others which fupplied the want of them,) the air, without being at all 

 enriched by the accefllon of foreigners, has maintained always fuch an abundance of 

 the volatile kind, that it needed no fupplies from Europe, but rather has many to make 

 up any one defed. 



To 



