4 



OYSTERS aUADRUPEDS. 



Dec. 1826. 



crews of sealing vessels ; but, except in the rainy season, they 

 all contain saltish water. This observation is applicable to 

 nearly the whole extent of the porphyritic country. Oyster- 

 shells, three or four inches in diameter, were found, scattered 

 over the hills, to the height of three or four hundred feet above 

 the sea. Sir John Narborough, in 1652, found oyster-shells at 

 Port San Julian; but, from a great many which have been lately 

 collected there, we know that they are of a species different 

 from that found at Port Santa Elena. Both are fossils. 



No recent specimen of the genus Ostrea was found by us on 

 any part of the Patagonian coast. Narborough, in noticing 

 those at Port San Julian, says, " They are the biggest oyster- 

 shells that I ever saw, some six, some seven inches broad, yet 

 not one oyster to be found in the harbour : whence I conclude 

 they were here when the world was formed." 



The short period of our visit did not enable us to add much 

 to natural history. Of quadrupeds we saw giianacoes, foxes, 

 cavies, and the armadillo ; but no traces of the puma ( Felis 

 cojicoloi'), or South American lion, although it is to be met 

 with in the interior. 



I mentioned that a herd of guanacoes was feeding near the 

 shore when we arrived. Every exertion was made to obtain some 

 of the animals ; but, either from their shyness, or our igno- 

 rance of the mode of entrapping them, we tried in vain, until 

 the arrival of a small sealing-vessel, which had hastened to our 

 assistance, upon seeing the fires we had accidentally made, but 

 w^hich her crew thought were intended for signals of distress. 

 They shot two, and sent some of the meat on board the Adven- 

 ture. The next day, Mr. Tarn succeeded in shooting one, a 

 female, which, when skinned and cleaned, weighed 168 lbs. 

 Narborough mentions having killed one at Port San Julian, 

 that weighed, " cleaned in his quarters, 268 lbs."' The watch- 

 ful and wary character of this animal is very remarkable. 

 Whenever a herd is feeding, one is posted, like a sentinel, on a 

 height ; and, at the approach of danger, gives instant alarm 

 by a loud neigh, when away they all go, at a hand-gallop, to 

 the next eminence, where they quietly resume their feeding, 



