FOXES— WOLVES. 



251 



All who have seen these animals alive have been struck 

 by their eager ferocity and disregard of man''s power. Byron 

 says, " Four creatures of great fierceness, resembling wolves, 

 ran up to their bellies in the water to attack the boat !" also, 

 " When any of these creatures got siglit of our people, though 

 at ever so great a distance, they ran directly at them." — " 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 

 mastiff, and their fangs are remarkably long and sharp.'* 

 " They burrow in the ground, like a fox." The Beagle's offi- 

 cers, when employed in surveying the Falklands, were often 

 annoyed, as well as amused, by the intrusion of these fearless 

 animals. In size, the larger ones are about twice as bulky as 

 an English fox, and they stand nearly twice as high upon 

 their legs.* Their heads are coarser, and their fur is not only 

 thicker as well as longer, but it is of a woolly nature. 



Referring again to a resemblance between the Falkland and 

 Patagonian foxes, I may remark, that there is as much difference 

 in size, in coat, and in tail, between the guanaco of Port Desire 

 and that of Navarin Island (near Cape Horn), as there is be- 

 tween the fox of West Falkland and that of Port Famine. 

 What the Patagonian animal is which the Blanco Bay people 

 called ' wolf,'-]- or to which Pigafetta alluded in his vocabulary 

 of words used by the Patagonians at Port San Julian, as equi- 

 valent to ' ani,'J I cannot say : I was inclined to suspect an 

 equivoque arising out of the word ' lobo,' which means seal as 

 well as wolf ; but Lieut. Wickham says he saw a wolf near the 

 Colorado River. § The Falkland foxes feed upon birds, rab- 



tudes, many of which, no doubt, are formed in the bays and rivers of the 

 continent. Seals and sea-birds repose on the edge of the shore, whether 

 it is ice or land, and foxes, or other animals, in search of prey, will fre- 

 quently be carried away on the large pieces of ice which break off and 

 are driven out to sea." — Burney, vol. iv, pp. 331-332. 



* The country they range over being open, without trees, does not 

 require them to steal along under branches, like the foxes of a woody 

 country. f Page 107 of this volume, 



: Burney, vol. i. p. 37. § Page 296. 



