STEAMER DUCK 291 



Steamer Ducks in great numbers at Chiloe Island, the Straits and the Falklands 

 lends value to his opinion. He shot many flying at Chiloe Island in May and June. 

 On the other hand Lord William Percy who collected in the same region in Decem- 

 ber, January and February, 1923-24 (Chiloe Island, the Guaytecas Islands and 

 the mainland coast from Pumalin north to fifty miles beyond Chiloe Island) at no 

 time saw a Steamer Duck that could fly in spite of the fact that he always chased 

 birds in order to try to make them fly. I do not see how this can be explained. Mr. 

 W. S. Brooks, who watched many in the Falklands, thought that the problem might 

 be settled on the basis of one species, highly variable and still in process of retrogres- 

 sion to Sightlessness, but he felt certain that the power to fly was not associated with 

 adolescence. 



Fourth, there is evidence that some males of the larger gray type mate with small 

 females of the red type in the Falklands which complicates this problem still more 

 (Beck, MS.; W. S. Brooks, MS.). We do not know what the immatures from these 

 various matings really look like, especially the young from small red male with 

 small red female. 



The older voyagers and naturalists held various opinions. King (1830) was the 

 first to point out individual differences and maintained that there were two spe- 

 cies: one, Anas brachyptera Latham, which was supposed to be entirely incapa- 

 ble of flight; and the other, which he called Anas patachonicus, smaller, somewhat 

 different in details of plumage and capable of flight. This theory was not maintained 

 by Cunningham (1871; 1871a) on the basis of his field work and his anatomical 

 research. Oustalet (1891) revived the idea of two species and gave plates clearly 

 representing the large gray type and the smaller rusty-red type. 



The Steamer Duck inhabits both the salt and the fresh water. The form seen so 

 commonly in the Straits is almost exclusively of the larger non-volant kind, while 

 on the ponds of Tierra del Fuego and of Patagonia the smaller flying type predomi- 

 nates. 



The skeleton presents a good many minor peculiarities, too numerous to mention, 

 and some points in common with the Scoters, the Musk Duck (Biziura) and even 

 with the Muscovy. 



Wariness. In the natural state, when unmolested, the Steamer Duck is a very 

 tame bird. This is the unanimous testimony of writers on the Falkland Islands, 

 where they are rarely disturbed. There they allow one to approach within a few 

 yards and show a good deal of curiosity. W. S. Brooks (MS.) says that if a dog dis- 

 turbed some of them, others farther out would come in to see what the trouble was, 

 and sometimes when he sat on the rocks they would come in and scan him as though 

 they had never seen a human being before. In the interior of Tierra del Fuego, 

 Blaauw (1916a) found them equally unsuspicious, but in the Straits of Magellan, 



