3°8 
CHONOS ARCHIPELAGO 
CHAP. 
I defy any one at first to feel certain that a small dog is not 
yelping somewhere in the forest. Just as with the cheucau, a 
person will sometimes hear the bark close by, but in vain may 
endeavour by watching, and with still less chance by beating 
the bushes, to see the bird ; yet at other times the guid-guid 
fearlessly comes near. Its manner of feeding and its general 
habits are very similar to those of the cheucau. 
On the coast, 1 a small dusky-coloured bird (Opetiorhynchus 
Patagonicus) is very common. It is remarkable from its quiet 
habits ; it lives entirely on the sea-beach, like a sandpiper. 
Besides these birds only few others inhabit this broken land. 
In my rough notes I describe the strange noises, which, although 
frequently heard within these gloomy forests, yet scarcely dis¬ 
turb the general silence. The yelping of the guid-guid, and 
the sudden whew-whew of the cheucau, sometimes come from 
afar off, and sometimes from close at hand ; the little black 
wren of Tierra del Fuego occasionally adds its cry ; the creeper 
(Oxyurus) follows the intruder screaming and twittering; the 
humming-bird may be seen every now and then darting from 
side to side, and emitting, like an insect, its shrill chirp ; lastly, 
from the top of some lofty tree the indistinct but plaintive note 
of the white-tufted tyrant-flycatcher (Myiobius) may be noticed. 
From the great preponderance in most countries of certain 
common genera of birds, such as the finches, one feels at first 
surprised at meeting with the peculiar forms above enumerated, 
as the commonest birds in any district. In central Chile two 
of them, namely the Oxyurus and Scytalopus, occur, although 
most rarely. When finding, as in this case, animals which 
seem to play so insignificant a part in the great scheme of 
nature, one is apt to wonder why they were created. But it 
should always be recollected, that in some other country 
perhaps they are essential members of society, or at some 
former period may have been so. If America south of 37°' 
were sunk beneath the waters of the ocean, these two birds 
might continue to exist in central Chile for a long period, but 
it is very improbable that their numbers would increase. We 
1 I may mention, as a proof of how great a difference there is between the seasons 
of the wooded and the open parts of this coast, that on September 20th, in lat. 34 0 , 
these birds had young ones in the nest, while among the Chonos Islands, three months 
later in the summer, they were only laying, the difference in latitude between these 
two places being about 700 miles. 
