MAMMALIA. y 



the seamen in Commodore Byron's voyage (in 1765) in rather a ludicrous manner. 

 Byron says that seals were not the only dangerous animals that they found, " for 

 the master having been sent out one day to sound the coast upon the south shore, 

 reported at his return that four creatures of great fierceness, resembling wolves, 

 ran up to their bellies in the water to attack the people in his boat, and that as 

 they happened to have no fire-arms with them, they had immediately put the boat 

 off in deep water." Byron adds that, " When any of these creatures got sight of 

 our people, though at ever so great a distance, they ran directly at them ; and no 

 less than five of them were killed this day. They were always called wolves by 

 the ship's company, but, except in their size, and the shape of the tail, I think 

 they bore a greater resemblance to a fox. They are as big as a middle-sized mas- 

 tiff, and their fangs are remarkably long and sharp. There are great numbers of 

 them upon this coast, though it is not perhaps easy to guess how they first came 

 hither ; for these islands are at least one hundred leagues distant from the main. 

 They burrow in the ground like a fox, and we have frequently seen pieces of seals 

 which they have mangled, and the skins of penguins lie scattered about the 

 mouths of their holes. To get rid of these creatures, our people set fire to the 

 grass, so that the country was in a blaze as far as the eye could reach, for 

 several days, and we could see them running in great numbers to seek other 

 quarters." 



The habits of these animals remain nearly the same to the present day, although 

 their numbers have been greatly decreased by the singular facility with which they 

 are destroyed. I was assured by several of the Spanish countrymen, who are em- 

 ployed in hunting the cattle which have run wild on these islands, that they have 

 repeatedly killed them by means of a knife held in one hand, and a piece of meat 

 to tempt them to approach, in the other. They range over the whole island, but 

 perhaps are most numerous near the coast ; in the inland parts they must subsist 

 almost exclusively on the upland geese, (Anser leucopterus,) which, from fear of 

 them, like the eider-ducks of Iceland, build only on the small outlying islets. 

 These wolves do not go in packs ; they wander about by day, but more commonly 

 in the evening ; they burrow holes; are generally very silent, excepting during the 

 breeding season, when they utter cries, which were described to me as resembling 

 those of the Canis Azarce. Spaniards and half-cast Indians, from several districts 

 of the southern portions of South America, have visited these islands, and they all 

 declare that the wolf is not found on the mainland ; the sealers likewise say it does 

 not occur on Georgia, Sandwich Land, or the other islands in the Antarctic ocean. 

 I entertain, therefore, no doubt, that the Canis antarcticus is peculiar to this 

 archipelago. It is found both on East and West Falkland, as might have been 

 inferred from the accounts given by Bougainville and Byron, who visited different 

 islands ;— I state this particularly, because the contrary has been asserted. I was 



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