In All Parts Black, And Some Spotted Animals May
Be Observed.
Capt.
Sulivan remarks, that the difference in
the prevailing colours was so obvious, that in looking for
the herds near Port Pleasant, they appeared from a long
distance like black spots, whilst south of Choiseul Sound
they appeared like white spots on the hill-sides. Capt. Sulivan
thinks that the herds do not mingle; and it is a singular
fact, that the mouse-coloured cattle, though living on the
high land, calve about a month earlier in the season that
the other coloured beasts on the lower land. It is interesting
thus to find the once domesticated cattle breaking
into three colours, of which some one colour would in all
probability ultimately prevail over the others, if the herds
were left undisturbed for the next several centuries.
The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced;
and has succeeded very well; so that they abound over large
parts of the island. Yet, like the horses, they are confined
within certain limits; for they have not crossed the central
chain of hills, nor would they have extended even so far as
its base, if, as the Gauchos informed me, small colonies has
not been carried there. I should not have supposed that
these animals, natives of northern Africa, could have existed
in a climate so humid as this, and which enjoys so little
sunshine that even wheat ripens only occasionally. It is
asserted that in Sweden, which any one would have thought
a more favourable climate, the rabbit cannot live out of
doors. The first few pairs, moreover, had here to content
against pre-existing enemies, in the fox and some large
hawks. The French naturalists have considered the black variety
a distinct species, and called it Lepus Magellanicus. [5]
They imagined that Magellan, when talking of an animal
under the name of "conejos" in the Strait of Magellan,
referred to this species; but he was alluding to a small cavy,
which to this day is thus called by the Spaniards. The
Gauchos laughed at the idea of the black kind being different
from the grey, and they said that at all events it had
not extended its range any further than the grey kind; that
the two were never found separate; and that they readily
bred together, and produced piebald offspring. Of the latter
I now possess a specimen, and it is marked about the head
differently from the French specific description. This
circumstance shows how cautious naturalists should be in
making species; for even Cuvier, on looking at the skull
of one of these rabbits, thought it was probably distinct!
The only quadruped native to the island [6]; is a large wolf-
like fox (Canis antarcticus), which is common to both East
and West Falkland. I have no doubt it is a peculiar species,
and confined to this archipelago; because many sealers,
Gauchos, and Indians, who have visited these islands, all
maintain that no such animal is found in any part of South
America.
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