OCCASIONAL NOTES. 261 
which we have come across, it would appear that their captures in this way 
cannot be great. You would be surprised to see how really fat and well 
nourished these savages are. Their proverbially wretched appearance is 
due to nakedness, dirt, and shuffling gait, and to their own seemingly 
innate feeling of human inferiority. Much misconception appears to 
prevail with reference to the number and species of fish which inhabit 
these waters, it being commonly supposed that throughout these western 
channels of the Straits of Magellan region the members of this class are 
remarkable for their paucity. The truth is that fish are abundant enough, 
but are rarely to be caught with hook and line, perhaps owing to the 
abundance of shell-fish which nature provides for their food. However, by 
means of a trammel-net placed nearly opposite the outlets of mountain 
streams we have, in most of the places in which we have anchored, 
succeeded in capturing considerable numbers; so much so as to constitute 
an item of no mean significance in the dietary of the ship. The hook and 
line we have now discarded as almost useless.. Even the fresh-water lakes 
are not altogether barren, for quite recently we obtained from a large fresh- 
water lake, which occupies a mountain basin close to the sea, two species— 
one a fish about eight inches long, which in general outline and arrange- 
ment of fins resembled a Grayling, but was without scales, and the other a 
small fish something like a Minnow. I have as yet failed to discover any 
representatives of the Batrachia on the Magellan Islands; but on the 
opposite shore of the mainland—i. e., on the western slope of the Cordillera— 
I have found two or three kinds of Frogs, which have, I believe, been 
already collected by Dr. Cunningham. However, in the discovery of a Rat 
inhabiting a small islet, distant about fifteen miles from the mainland, 
I have, I think, added to the list of animals living in these desolate cloud- 
collecting regions. I trust that Iam not wearying your patience by this 
wordy epistle, which only too plainly displays the paucity of facts which 
I have as yet collected. Mr. Howard Saunders has asked me to note the 
distribution, breeding haunts, &c., of the Gulls as carefully as possible. So 
far we have met with only three species in these channels, viz., Larus 
dominicanus, L. modestus?, and a very wary Skua of a dusky brown colour, 
and barred with white across the wings. ‘This latter I have not yet 
succeeded in getting within range of. In reading just now, in ‘ The Times’ 
of the 29th November, Dr. Schliemann’s account of his recent excavations 
at Troy, I notice that he expresses his astonishment at finding immense 
numbers of the shells of cockles and mussels among the strata of the 
prehistoric débris. He further says, ‘“ No doubt they have once been 
plentiful in these seas, and most probably the Ilians have been eating 
them; but it remains unexplainable why they left them in the houses 
instead of throwing them away.” It might be interesting to him to 
know that among the Fuegian tribes who inhabit these regions, and who 
