200 FALKLAND ISLANDS. | CHAP. Ix. 
on the small outlying islets. This is supposed to be from fear 
of thé foxes: and it is perhaps from the same cause that these 
birds, though very tame by day, are shy and wild in the dusk of 
the evening. They live entirely on vegetable matter. The 
rock-goose, so called from living exclusively on the sea-beach 
(Anas antarctica), is common both here and on the west coast of 
America, as far north as Chile. In the deep and retired channels 
of Tierra del Fuego, the snow-white gander, invariably accom- 
panied by his darker consort, and standing close by each other on 
some distant rocky point, is a common feature in the landscape. 
In these islands a great loggerheaded duck or goose (Anas 
brachyptera), which sometimes weighs twenty-two pounds, is 
very abundant. These birds were in former days called, from 
their extraordinary manner of paddling and splashing upon the 
water, race-horses; but now they are named, much more appro- 
priately, steamers. Their wings are too small and weak to allow 
of flight, but by their aid, partly swimming and partly flapping 
the surface of the water, they move very quickly. The manner is 
something like that by which the common house-duck escapes when 
pursued by a dog; but I am nearly sure that the steamer moves 
its wings alternately, instead of both together, as in other birds. 
These clumsy, loggerheaded ducks make such a noise and 
splashing, that the effect is exceedingly curious. 
Thus we find in South America three birds which use their 
wings for other purposes bésides flight ; the penguin as fins, the 
steamer as paddles, and the ostrich as sails: and the Apteryx of 
New Zealand, as well as its gigantic extinct prototype the 
Deinornis, possess only rudimentary representatives of wings. 
The steamer is able to dive only toa very short distance. It 
feeds entirely on shell-fish from the kelp and tidal rocks; hence 
the beak and head, for the purpose of breaking them, are sur- 
prisingly heavy and strong: the head is so strong that I have 
scarcely been able to fracture it with my geological hammer ; 
and all our sportsmen soon discovered how tenacious these birds 
were of life. When in the evening pluming themselves ina 
flock, they make the same edd mixture of sounds which bull- 
frogs do within the tropics. 
In Tierra del Fuego, as well-as at the Falkland Islands, J made 
