98 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



ceeds slowly in the bones of the cranium, and many of them 

 continue unanchylosed or separable for a considerable period. 



Leaving the reader to form his own conclusions from the 

 data which I have supplied as to whether there are one or 

 two species of steamer-duck, I resume my chronicle. On 

 the afternoon of this day, on which I skinned our first 

 MicTopterus, or loggerhead as it is commonly called at the 

 Falkland Islands, I went on shore with Dr. Campbell, whom 

 the governor had asked to lend his medical aid to one or two 

 of the colonists who were ailing, there being at this time no 

 resident medical man at Punta Arenas, a deficiency which 

 was not supplied till a year later. After these services had 

 been rendered, the intendente showed us his house and 

 garden and stock, which last consisted of the previously- 

 mentioned guanacos, a number of calves and oxen, a large 

 flock of kids, some tame upland geese {ChloepJmga Magel- 

 lanica), and two young ostriches (Rhea Americana). The 

 last-mentioned birds succeeded in making their escape from 

 their enclosure at the time of our visit, and rushing up and 

 down the kitchen - garden, pursued by the governor's 

 secretary, furnished a most laughable spectacle, as, appa- 

 rently determined to improve their unwonted opportunities 

 to the uttermost, they ran about, snapping off the heads of 

 the young cabbages and potatoes. 



Later in the day, we walked some distance along the 

 beach to the south-westward of the settlement, passing on our 

 way the small Eoman Catholic cemetery, with the adjacent 

 space of ground where strangers are buried. 



On the sandy beach several large jelly-fish (a species of 

 Cyancea), common in the Strait and at the Falkland Islands, 

 with a disc in some cases nearly two feet in diameter, 

 variegated with rich brown and purple, and long arms of the 



