260 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
excellent dish of Carp, which was extremely welcome. In spite 
of feeling completely worn out, we sat down to work immediately 
under the mosquito-net. An old cask and a plank formed our 
table, with which we had to be satisfied. The fisherman and 
his servant soon left for Iuisslin; the boy for Kara-Orman. The 
latter we commissioned to bring us back some good ‘“ wotka” 
(brandy) to-morrow; one needs it here in these lagoons. ‘Thus 
we are quite alone at the fishing-hut, far away from all human 
beings. Towards evening Sterna hirundo flies about on the 
Girla, while the Bearded and Penduline Tits, the Great Reed 
Warbler, and the Reed Bunting are heard everywhere around. 
OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
Tue ‘ALERT’ IN THE SrRaivs or Macetian.—The following extracts 
from a letter addressed to Capt. Feilden by Dr. R. W. Coppinger, Surgeon 
of H.M.S. ‘ Alert,’ dated Tom Bay, Trinidad Channel, Straits of Magellan, 
4th March, 1879, will be read with interest :—‘I shall not pack up 
anything for sending home until our arrival at Valparaiso, where we expect 
to be in May. I am not collecting the plants here, as they have already 
been so thoroughly worked out that I should only be losing time, otherwise 
valuable. Excepting the difference in dialect, the natives of these western 
channels, extending from the Straits of Magellan to the Gulf of Penas, 
seem to be in nearly all respects similar to those of the western parts of 
Terra del Fuego, who have been so carefully described by King and Fitzroy 
and Darwin. Their general appearance, boats, wigwams, food and manner 
of living seem to accord closely. They, however, very sparsely populate 
the wide extent of country which they wander over, and to judge from the 
number of deserted huts that we encounter, in proportion to those that are 
tenanted, it would appear that they seldom remain long in the same 
situation. I do not think they are compelled to adopt this wandering life 
through a scarcity of their staple diet in any oue situation, for mussels and 
limpets are so abundant about these coasts that in any of the favourite 
camping grounds—i.e., where a gently sloping beach allows a large extent of 
foreshore to be exposed at low-water-—I should think the supply practically 
inexhaustible. The animals which they hunt are the Seal and the Otter, 
and for this chase they are provided with dogs and bone-pointed spears ; 
but, judging from the few skins which they exhibit, and from the small 
number of bones of the above animals which are to be found in their 
wigwams, as well as from the few individuals of the Seal and Otter tribes 
