494 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : ZOOLOGY. 



bajel quando vaga.' For the next mention of the bird we are indebted to 

 the narrative of the circumnavigation of the world by Oliver van Noort, 

 undertaken sixteen years later. It is there stated, that while in the Strait 

 of Magellan in January 1600, they were driven by a storm into Goose 

 Bay, ' so-called of the store of that Fowle, their found fit for swiming and 

 long diuing, but vnable to flie.' There does not appear to be any men- 

 tion of the bird either in the voyages of Cavendish or of Drake, nor in 

 those of any of the English navigators until after the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century; but in Wood's voyage through the Strait in 1669 refer- 

 ence is made to 'great Blue Ducks, which last are not very shy' a very 

 brief description, but which applies more to the steamer-duck than to any 

 other bird which he could have encountered. In the following century, 

 the steamer-duck is noticed by several voyagers, and among these, by one 

 of the most scientific navigators the world has ever seen the celebrated 

 Captain Cook. In his 'Voyage towards the South Pole and round the 

 World, performed by His Majesty's Ships the "Resolution" and "Adven- 

 ture," in the years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775,' he remarks, in his ac- 

 count of Christmas Sound, Tierra del Fuego, that 'here is a kind of 

 duck, called by our people race-horses, on account of the great swiftness 

 with which they run on the water ; for they cannot fly, the wings being 

 too short to support the body in the air. This bird is at the Falkland 

 Islands, as appears by Perety's Journal ; ' and again, in his description of 

 Staten Land : ' Here were ducks, but not many, and some of that sort we 

 called race-horses. We shot some, and found them to weigh twenty-nine 

 or thirty pounds ; those who ate of them said they were very good.' The 

 first detailed account, however, of the habits of the steamer-duck is given 

 by that intelligent and accurate observer of nature, Captain Philip Parker 

 King, in his narrative of the voyage of the 'Adventure' and 'Beagle.' 

 He states that, at Eagle Bay, beyond Cape San Isidro, in the Strait of 

 Magellan, he saw, for the first time, 'that most remarkable bird the 

 steamer duck,' and observes that, 'before steamboats were in general use, 

 this bird was denominated, from its swiftness in skimming over the sur- 

 face of the water, the "race-horse," a name which occurs frequently in 

 Cook's, Byron's, and other voyages. It is a gigantic duck, the largest I 

 have met. It has the lobated hind toe placed far backwards, and other 

 characteristics of the oceanic ducks. The principal peculiarity of this bird 

 is the shortness and remarkably small size of the wings, which, not having 



