3o8 CHONOS ARCHIPELAGO chap. 



I defy any one at first to feel certain that a small dog is not 

 yelping somewhere in the forest. Just as with the cheucau, a 

 person will sometimes hear the bark close by, but in vain may 

 endeavour by watching, and with still less chance by beating 

 the bushes, to see the bird ; yet at other times the guid-guid 

 fearlessly comes near. Its manner of feeding and its general 

 habits are very similar to those of the cheucau. 



On the coast,^ a small dusky-coloured bird (Opetiorhynchus 

 Patagonicus) is very common. It is remarkable from its quiet 

 habits ; it lives entirely on the sea -beach, like a sandpiper. 

 Besides these birds only few others inhabit this broken land. 

 In my rough notes I describe the strange noises, which, although 

 frequently heard within these gloomy forests, yet scarcely dis- 

 turb the general silence. The yelping of the guid-guid, and 

 the sudden whew-whew of the cheucau, sometimes come from 

 afar off, and sometimes from close at hand ; the little black 

 wren of Tierra del Fuego occasionally adds its cry ; the creeper 

 (Oxyurus) follows the intruder screaming and twittering ; the 

 humming-bird may be seen every now and then darting from 

 side to side, and emitting, like an insect, its shrill chirp ; lastly, 

 from the top of some lofty tree the indistinct but plaintive note 

 of the white-tufted tyrant-flycatcher (Myiobius) may be noticed. 

 From the great preponderance in most countries of certain 

 common genera of birds, such as the finches, one feels at first 

 surprised at meeting with the peculiar forms above enumerated, 

 as the commonest birds in any district. In central Chile two 

 of them, namely the Oxyurus and Scytalopus, occur, although 

 most rarely. When finding, as in this case, animals which 

 seem to play so insignificant a part in the great scheme of 

 nature, one is apt to wonder why they were created. But it 

 should always be recollected, that in some other country 

 perhaps they are essential members of society, or at some 

 former period may have been so. If America south of 37° 

 were sunk beneath the waters of the ocean, these two birds 

 might continue to exist in central Chile for a long period, but 

 it is very improbable that their numbers would increase. We 



^ I may mention, as a proof of how great a difference there is between the seasons 

 of the wooded and the open parts of this coast, that on September 20th, in lat. 34°, 

 these birds had young ones in the nest, while among the Chonos Islands, three months 

 later in the summer, they were only laying, the difference in latitude between these 

 two places being about 700 miles. 



