1 30 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



could in no case be considered as affording any adequate idea of the bird 

 and mammal life indigenous to the forests of the southern Andes. 

 Although the dark and gloomy nature of the day was such as would 

 exert a particularly depressing influence among the birds, hardly had I 

 entered the forest when the incessant twittering of the beautiful little 

 Chilian wren, Troglodytes hornensis, could be heard all about me. As I 

 stopped for a moment these little birds, with habits more closely resem- 

 bling those of the creepers than of the wrens, appeared in great numbers, 

 hopping about on the branches and trunks of the trees, perfectly fearless, 

 approaching to within a few inches of my outstretched hand and exhibit- 

 ing a degree of confidence in human nature previously altogether unob- 

 served by me in any species of wild bird. In the upper branches of the 

 trees might be heard almost constantly, and occasionally seen, a small 

 white-crested fly-catcher, Elainea albiceps, which was as consistently shy 

 and unapproachable as the little wren just mentioned was tame. Two or 

 three species of flickers were also not uncommon. 



It took but a few moments to cross through the narrow wooded strip 

 to the bad-land hills beyond. These I soon found to consist, for the 

 most part, at this point at least, of light ash-colored materials, with an abun- 

 dance of lignitized and petrified trunks of trees, but singularly destitute 

 of animal remains. It is difficult for one who has not seen it to imagine 

 the abundance of fossil wood in these beds. In one locality I came upon 

 a place in the side of a canon, where, for a depth of perhaps forty feet, the 

 walls on either side were entirely made up of the petrified trunks and 

 branches of trees. Some of the former were several feet in diameter and 

 many feet in length, and they were interlocked one with another in such 

 manner as to suggest that originally they had formed a natural dam in 

 the current of some prehistoric stream. 



After a few hours spent in a vain search for mammalian remains in 

 these beds I started for camp, returning by way of the forest through which 

 I had passed on my way thither. Just as I was emerging from the wooded 

 tract into the meadow land in front, I came suddenly and unexpectedly upon 

 three deer browsing quietly in the grass along the margin of the wood. 

 They were the first I had seen in Patagonia, and for a moment it was 

 evident that I was the most startled individual of the four. They made 

 no effort to escape, as they might easily have done by taking to the wood, 

 but stood at a distance of not more than twenty feet, returning my expres- 



