THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 215 



fungi. A small ray, taken in the seine of the " Spiteful/' was 

 brought to me by one of the officers, and afterwards proved to 

 be the type of a new genus, which Dr. Giinther has denomi- 

 nated Psammohatis.* On the 10th we began to take in coal, 

 and accordingly nearly all the officers spent the afternoon 

 on shore, a football-match being played between the repre- 

 sentatives of the two ships, and contemplated with much 

 curiosity by the Chilian inhabitants of the settlement. A 

 specimen of a most beautiful species of teal was this day shot 

 by one of the officers of the " Spiteful," and very kindly pre- 

 sented to me by him. This was the Querquedula cyanopteray 

 and the only example of the species ever seen by us in the 

 Strait. Captain King, who briefly described it under the 

 name of Anas Bafflesii, gives the " Strait of Magalhaens and 

 western coast to Chiloe" as localities where the species occurs, 

 but does not state whether he often met with it, and it had 

 never been previously observed by the governor of Sandy 

 Point, to whom I exhibited it. The principal colour of the 

 plumage of the body is a rich chestnut-red, with small circular 

 black spots, and the wings are exquisitely coloured with 

 beautiful shades of green and blue. In the course of the 

 afternoon I visited, in company with several of the officers, 

 the Patagonian camp, situated near the north bank of the 

 river. Prom some of the tents we heard a lugubrious chanting 

 proceeding, a sure indication that the inhabitants had been 

 partaking freely of rum. The first man encountered by us 

 was our old acquaintance Pedro, who, after asking one of our 

 party, " What man you ? " inquired of us each in turn, " You 

 the Capitan ? " On one of the officers informing him that I was 

 " un medico," he introduced me to the medical practitioner of 

 the tribe, who grinned in a complacent manner. Pedro then 



* British Museum Catalogue of Fishes, vol. viii. p. 470. 



