S88 



FORCED CONTRIBUTIONS- 



; BIRDS. 



1829. 



tax, to the government ; but forced contributions may be 

 required, when the necessities of the state demand them. These 

 contributions are sometimes unfairly levied in Chile ; for the 

 subsidy is only taken from those who possess grain, or some 

 equally tangible article which can easily be turned into money ; 

 so that persons who are rich enough to live without culti- 

 vating land, or trading for their support, contribute nothing 

 towards the emergency of the State. How does this accord 

 with republican principles ? or how can a republican govern- 

 ment, so conducted, expect to become respectable among 

 nations ? 



I am not aware that such contributions have yet been levied 

 in Childe. From the character of General Aldunate, I do not 

 for a moment think he would commit such an act of injustice ; 

 but it is in the power of any Yntendente to call for them, and 

 I afterwards witnessed an example of this, during my visit to 

 Concepcion. A considerable quantity of wheat, purchased by 

 a Russian vessel, for the use of their settlements on the coast 

 of California, was brought down to the port, at a time when 

 the government was much in want of money, and knew no just 

 way of obtaining it. They therefore very unceremoniously seized 

 the wheat, and applied its value in dollars to their own use, 

 giving only an uncertain, almost a nominal security to the owner 

 for the recovery of his money. The only way of accounting for 

 such an arbitrary proceeding is, that the country was distracted 

 by civil war, and that the person who owned the property was 

 opposed to that party, which at the time happened to have the 

 upper hand, and which held, by main strength alone, the reins 

 of government. 



Among the birds of Chiloe, the most remarkable are the 

 ' Cagge,' the ' Cancania,' or ' Canquena,'and the ^ Barkingbird.'^ 



* Molina notices the ' Ca^ge,' or 'Chiloe duck,' (J7ias antarctica) 

 vol. i. p. 268, and calls it Anas hybrida. M. Lesson, in his 'Manuel 

 d'Ornithologie,' ii. 409, has taken great pains to describe it, and remarks, 

 with reason, that much obscurity exists in the specific descriptions of the 

 goose kind in the Malouine (Falkland) Islands, and the extreme southern 

 land of America. The male, Lesson says, is white, the feet and beak of 



a bright 



