NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
891 
substituted. At present the Company pays men to kill the wild cattle for their hides. 
They are thrown with the lasso or bolas, ham-strung, or “cut down” as the term is, 
and then killed and skinned at leisure. Two thousand had been thus killed in Lafonia 
in the year of the visit. 
The boys at the Falkland Islands have invented a small bolas in which the large 
knuckle-bones of cattle are used as the larger balls, and a smaller bone from the foreleg 
as the small ball for the hand ; they use the bone bolas for catching wild geese, creeping 
up to a flock and throwing the bolas at the birds on the wing as they rise. They con- 
stantly succeed in thus entangling them, and bringing them to the ground, and their 
mothers always send out their boys when they want a goose, so that the birds are 
seldom shot at around Darwin Harbour. The bone bolas comes curiously near that of the 
Esquimaux in structure, the latter, used also for catching birds, has however more than 
three balls, and these are made of ivory. Flocks of the geese were to be seen feeding on 
the grass close to the houses, looking just like farmyard geese. The birds take no notice 
of a gun, but are very quick at seeing a bolas brought near them, well knowing that they 
are going to be molested. 
Near Darwin Harbour Mr. Moseley found some Dipterous insects with rudimentary 
wings, of which specimens have been sent to Mr. W. F. Kirby of the British Museum, 
who writes as follows : — “ One is a Gnat allied to Limnobia (Tipulidse). Another species 
has considerable resemblance to some of the subapterous Kerguelen insects, with one of 
which some dipterologists of my acquaintance regard it as identical ; my own view is 
that it is totally distinct, but I should not like to express any opinion as to its affinities 
in the absence of better preserved specimens.” 
The Wingless Flies of Kerguelen have hitherto been found nowhere else but there 
and in Marion Island, and it would be of great interest to find further connections 
between Fuegia and the distant Kerguelen Island, the connections between the floras of 
which were so long ago demonstrated by Sir J oseph Hooker. 
The Gnat cannot fly, having even smaller rudiments of wings than the other insect. 
It was found crawling on rocks, on the shore in sheltered places, and also on the sunny 
sheltered face of a peat-bank, which formed the cattle fence across the narrow neck of 
the promontory of Lafonia. It runs quickly, and when in danger draws up its legs and 
drops amongst the grass in order to escape. A Gnat with rudimentary wings occurs 
also in Kerguelen Island. Some species of Flies and Gnats with rudimentary wings are 
known in Europe and elsewhere, and an Apterous Fly ( Borborus apterus ) occurs in 
England. A Wingless Beetle, and another with perfect wings, were also found near 
Darwin Harbour. 
The other species was found near Darwin Harbour, only on the sea coast, in hollows 
under overhanging slabs of the sandstone rocks, and sheltering in crevices. It springs 
nimbly like a Flea or small Grasshopper, and is a little difficult to catch, but cannot 
