258 



FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



March^ 1834. 



duck escapes when pursued by a dog ; but I am nearly sure 

 that the steamer moves its wings alternately^ instead of both 

 together, as in other birds. These clumsy, loggerheaded 

 ducks make such a noise and splashing, that the effect is 

 exceedingly curious. 



Thus we find in South America three birds, which use 

 their wings for other purposes besides flight : the penguin as 

 fins, the steamer as paddles, and the ostrich as sails to a vessel. 

 The steamer is able to dive only a very short distance. It 

 feeds entirely on shell-fish from the kelp and tidal rocks;* 

 hence the beak and head, for the purpose of breaking them, 

 are surprisingly heavy and strong. So strong is the head, 

 that I have scarcely been able to fracture it with my 

 geological hammer ; and aU our sportsmen soon discovered 

 how tenacious these birds were of life. When pluming 

 themselves in the evening in a flock, they make the same 

 odd mixture of sounds which bullfrogs do within the 

 Tropics. 



In Tierra del Fuego, as well as at the Falkland Islands, I 

 made many observations on the lower marine animals,* but 

 they are of little general interest. I will only mention one 

 class of facts, relating to certain zoophytes in the more highly 

 organized division of that class. Several genera {Jlustra, 

 eschara, cellaria, crisia, and others) agree in having singular 



* While at the Falklands, during the autumn of the southern hemi- 

 sphere, most of the lower marine animals were breeding. I was surprised to 

 find on counting the eggs of a large white Doris (this sea-slug was three 

 and a half inches long) how extraordinarily numerous they were. From 

 two to five eggs (each three-thousandths of an inch in diameter) were 

 contained in a spherical little case. These were arranged two deep in 

 transverse rows forming a ribbon. The ribbon adhered by its edge to the 

 rock in an oval spire. One, which I found, measured nearly twenty inches 

 in length and half in breadth. By counting how many balls were con- 

 tained in a tenth of an inch in the row, and how many rows in an equal 

 length of the ribbon, on the most moderate computation there were six 

 hundred thousand eggs. Yet this Doris was certainly not very common : 

 although i was otten searching under the stones I saw only seven indi_ 

 viduals. 



