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.
Molina, from a similarity in habits, thought that this
was the same with his "culpeu;" [7] but I have seen both,
and they are quite distinct. These wolves are well known
from Byron's account of their tameness and curiosity, which
the sailors, who ran into the water to avoid them, mistook
for fierceness. To this day their manners remain the same.
They have been observed to enter a tent, and actually pull
some meat from beneath the head of a sleeping seaman. The
Gauchos also have frequently in the evening killed them,
by holding out a piece of meat in one hand, and in the other
a knife ready to stick them. As far as I am aware, there
is no other instance in any part of the world, of so small
a mass of broken land, distant from a continent, possessing
so large an aboriginal quadruped peculiar to itself. Their
numbers have rapidly decreased; they are already banished
from that half of the island which lies to the eastward of
the neck of land between St. Salvador Bay and Berkeley
Sound. Within a very few years after these islands shall
have become regularly settled, in all probability this for
will be classed with the dodo, as an animal which has perished
from the face of the earth.
At night (17th) we slept on the neck of land at the head
of Choiseul Sound, which forms the south-west peninsula.
The valley was pretty well sheltered from the cold wind,
but there was very little brushwood for fuel. The Gauchos,
however, soon found what, to my great surprise, made nearly
as hot a fire as coals; this was the skeleton of a bullock
lately killed, from which the flesh had been picked by the
carrion-hawks. They told me that in winter they often killed a
beast, cleaned the flesh from the bones with their knives,
and then with these same bones roasted the meat for their
suppers.
18th. - It rained during nearly the whole day. At night
we managed, however, with our saddle-cloths to keep ourselves
pretty well dry and warm; but the ground on which
we slept was on each occasion nearly in the state of a bog,
and there was not a dry spot to sit down on after our day's
ride. I have in another part stated how singular it is that
there should be absolutely no trees on these islands, although
Tierra del Fuego is covered by one large forest. The
largest bush in the island (belonging to the family of
Compositae) is scarcely so tall as our gorse. The best fuel is
afforded by a green little bush about the size of common
heath, which has the useful property of burning while fresh
and green. It was very surprising to see the Gauchos, in
the midst of rain and everything soaking wet, with nothing
more than a tinder-box and a piece of rag, immediately make
a fire. They sought beneath the tufts of grass and bushel
for a few dry twigs, and these they rubbed into fibres; then
surrounding them with coarser twigs, something like a bird's
nest, they put the rag with its spark of fire in the middle
and covered it up. The nest being then held up to the
wind, by degrees it smoked more and more, and at last
burst out in flames. I do not think any other method would
have had a chance of succeeding with such damp materials.
19th. - Each morning, from not having ridden for some
time previously, I was very stiff. I was surprised to hear
the Gauchos, who have from infancy almost lived on horseback,
say that, under similar circumstances, they always
suffer. St. Jago told me, that having been confined for three
months by illness, he went out hunting wild cattle, and in
consequence, for the next two days, his thighs were so stiff
that he was obliged to lie in bed.
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