MAMMALIA. 
9 
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 
