114 BIRDS OF TIEKKA DEL FUEGO 



feathers, which is impenetrable by anything smaller than swan 

 shot. The flavour of their flesh is so strong and fishy, that at 

 first we killed them solely for specimens. Five or six months, 

 however, on salt provisions, taught many to think such food 

 palatable, and the seamen never lost an opportunity of eating 

 them. I have preferred these Ducks to salt beef, but more as a 

 preventive against scurvy, than from liking their taste." 



Darwin states this Duck sometimes weighs as much as twenty- 

 two pounds. 



Cunningham records no Aveight, and sets the average length 

 of adult birds at about thirty inches. 



Pre\dous observers confine themselves almost wholly to 



these birds in marine waters. In Tierra del Fuego, I have 



frequently seen them inland as much as ten or fifteen miles, 



passing from one piece of Avater to another, and also — more 



often — on lagoons unable to fly. What they live on in inland 



fresh waters, it would be interesting to know. Inland, I 



have invariably found them in pairs — and once a single bird 



on the Rio San Martin. On the sea coast, I have seen them in 



pairs, and in small companies of three or four together. If 



heavily built — and they are of amazingly massive proportions, 



particularly as regards the head and neck — they are sharp - 



sighted and sharp-witted. They fly or paddle out of range 



on the least appearance of danger. Particularly is this the 



case with birds on the sea shore. They have nothing of 



that element of curiosity about them, which is remarkable in 



CEchmophorus major so often found in the same waters in close 



company. Common as these Ducks are in small scattered 



communities, I did not obtain a specimen. I shot several at 



various times, but somehow was always prevented by some 



untoward circumstance from skinning one. Once I shot a fine 



male, one of a pair unable to fly, on a pan near the mouth of the 



Rio San Martin, bat could not convey it home in proper 



condition for skinning : my haversack broke under the weight, 



and having no saddlebags, and being burdened by a gun, it had 



to be abandoned. Frequently I found these birds lying dead 



