7O PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



and placed the fossils safely in my collecting bag and, taking up the con- 

 dor, started for camp. All went well until I reached the steep incline 

 leading from the summit of the landslide to the beach two hundred feet 

 beneath. On previous occasions I had found the descent of this a diffi- 

 cult matter and I hesitated to attempt it with the present additional 

 encumbrance. While meditating as to which of the articles I had best 

 leave, and loath to part with any, it suddenly occurred to me that, since 

 the condor had not suffered from its fall when shot, it would be likely to 

 receive little or no injury if I rolled it over the cliff to the beach below. 

 Once on the beach I could take all to camp without further trouble. This 

 seemed an easy solution of the difficulty, and I proceeded at once to act 

 upon it. Placing my gun and other articles on the ground, I took the 

 condor in both hands and threw him as far out as possible, intending 

 that he should fall upon the shingle of the beach without striking any of 

 the projecting ledges of the cliff. What was my surprise and disappoint- 

 ment, however, to see the bird almost immediately after he left my hands 

 take to flight and go soaring off as though quite unharmed, bearing with 

 him the highly prized skin with the beautiful coat of brilliantly white and 

 jet black feathers which I had for several hours confidently considered as 

 one among the number of the more important of my acquisitions for the 

 day. Verily we should not count our chickens before they are hatched. 



We remained at this camp near Cape Fairweather for more than a 

 month, or throughout midwinter. Notwithstanding the generally raw and 

 inclement weather, with occasional short spells of quite severe cold, I was 

 surprised at the tenacity and hardiness of some of the wild flowers, and 

 more especially one species of Compositae, a Senecio. I found this plant 

 in full bloom in an especially favored locality on the top of the landslide 

 mentioned above, on the fourth day of July, 1896, a day equivalent in the 

 northern hemisphere to the fourth day of January. This seems a little 

 remarkable, considering that Cape Fairweather is located in S. Lat. 51 30', 

 or seven hundred miles farther from the equator than New York City, and 

 notwithstanding that the winter of 1896 was an exceptionally mild one for 

 that country. 



Early in August we left Cape Fairweather, moving to a point (Canon 

 de Palo) some miles farther up the coast, where we remained for a few 

 days, examining the bluffs for fossils and in making further collections of 

 recent birds and mammals. Not meeting with very great success at this 



