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JULY, 1910 

A NATURALIST IN THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN? 
By Dr. CHARLES HASKINS TOWNSEND 
DIRECTOR OF THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM 
Sa was in January and February of the misty Antarctic summer 
that we lingered for a month along the seven hundred miles of 
Magellan Strait and Smythe Channel. The delicate flowers of a 
December springtime were passing out of bloom giving place to flowers 
of longer duration, and young land birds were all out of their nests. 
The uneyen plains of eastern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego were 
green with grass and low shrubbery and the mountains along the 
western channels dark with unbroken forests of evergreen beech. Our 
course along salt-water passages was marked by somewhat gustier 
weather than would have been found a short distance inland, but it was 
not uncomfortably chilly for explorations ashore in daytime, and days 
are long in summer at fifty-three degrees latitude, both south and 
north. It was in fact pleasanter in the straits than we had found it 
shortly before at Montevideo and Buenos Aires—a thousand miles 
nearer the tropics—where “ pamperos” had been blowing wildly along 
the great river. 
It was pleasant to escape from the unfriendly South Atlantic and 
enjoy the easy progress of a vessel on even keel. Still more agreeable 
was the panorama of passing shores and the abundant animal life of the 
ehannels and their islands. Best of all were the intimate observations 
of the aspects of nature, permitted by our daily explorations on land, 
the Albatross always within reach as a home camp, anchored in some 
protected harbor. 
To the naturalist a voyage of exploration through the Straits of 
Magellan is a rare privilege, not only on account of the strangeness of 
its animal and plant life and the wonders of its scenery, but also because 
of the records of scientific discovery associated with it. We were fol- 
lowing in the wake of Darwin and the Beagle, although more than half 
* Illustrated by photographs made by Mr. Thomas Lee and the writer. 
