66 WHAT MR. DARWIN SAW. 



PATAGONIA. 



I was much amused by watching its habits. It was a brave 

 bird, and till reaching the sea it regularly fought and drove 

 me backward. Nothing less than heavy blows w r ould have 

 stopped him ; every inch he gained he firmly kept, standing 

 close before me, erect and determined, while all the time roll- 

 ing his head from side to side, in a very odd manner, as if 

 he could only see distinctly out of the lower front part of 

 each eye. This bird is commonly called the jackass-penguin, 

 from its habit, while on shore, of throwing its head back- 

 ward, and making a loud, strange noise, very like the bray- 

 ing of an ass ; but while at sea, and undisturbed, its note is 

 very deep and solemn, and is often heard in the night-time. 

 In diving, its little wings are used as fins; but on the land, 

 as front legs. When crawling, on four legs as it were, 

 through the tussocks or on the side of a grassy cliff, it 

 moves so very quickly that it might easily be mistaken for 

 a quadruped. When at sea and fishing, it comes to the 

 surface for the purpose of breathing with such a spring, 

 and dives again so instantaneously, that I defy any one at 

 first sight to be sure that it was not a fish leaping for sport. 



THE CONDOR. 



THIS day (April 27th, 1834) I shot a condor. It meas- 

 ured, from tip to tip of the wings, eight and a half feet, and 

 from beak to tail, four feet. This bird is known to have a 

 wide geographical range, being found on the west coast of 

 South America, from the Strait of Magellan along the Cordi- 

 llera as far as eight degrees north of the equator. A line 



