THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 81 



ours, Doctor Turner, hath written of it by the name of 

 Winter's Barhe, what I have said may suffice. The leaf of this 

 Tree is of a whitish greene, and is not vnlike to the Aspen 

 leafe." A very good description, if we except the remark on 

 the form of the leaf, which inclines one to believe that the 

 worthy knight's conceptions of an aspen leaf must have been 

 somewhat vague. 



Two of the party gained a momentary glimpse of a fox in 

 the gorge through which the river, already referred to, flows ; 

 and we saw a pair of large woodpeckers — the plumage of the 

 female of which was black, while the male was provided with a 

 scarlet crest — run spirally up the stem of a tree, tapping the 

 bark as they went. This species, the Campephilus Magellan- 

 icus, first, I believe, described by Captain King, was only met 

 with at Sandy Point, and that but during our first season ; for 

 as the colony extended, and a considerable amount of timber 

 was in consequence felled, several species of birds became 

 very scarce, probably retiring into the fastnesses of the forest. 

 Two circumstances specially arrested my attention in the sub- 

 sequent examination of several specimens of this woodpecker — 

 viz. the enormous quantities of parasitic Anoplura occurring on 

 the feathers, greatly exceeding in number those found on any 

 other birds, with the exception of some of the carrion-feeding 

 hawks ; and the extreme tenacity with which the skin adhered 

 to the muscles of the body, neck, and head, — requiring to be 

 carefully dissected off, and adhering to the crown of the skull 

 almost as intimately as periosteum. 



A few species of Coleoptera were picked up, including a 

 pretty Carahus (0. suturalis) and one of the Ehyncophora, with 

 a blunt projecting spine on each elytron ; but insect-life, in 

 general, appeared to be at a discount, and a more intimate 



G 



