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Fix typo
`this for will be` => `this fox will be` See page scan: https://archive.org/details/voyageofbeagle0029char/page/208/mode/2up Page 209, first paragraph, third line counting from back: `this fox / will be`.
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<p>The cattle, instead of having degenerated like the horses seem, as before remarked, to have increased in size; and they are much more numerous than the horses. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Capt.</abbr> Sulivan informs me that they vary much less in the general form of their bodies and in the shape of their horns than English cattle. In colour they differ much; and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in different parts of this one small island, different colours predominate. Round Mount Usborne, at a height of from 1,000 to 1,500 feet above the sea, about half of some of the herds are mouse or lead-coloured, a tint which is not common in other parts of the island. Near Port Pleasant dark brown prevails, whereas south of Choiseul Sound (which almost divides the island into two parts), white beasts with black heads and feet are the most common: in all parts black, and some spotted animals may be observed. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Capt.</abbr> 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 hillsides. <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Capt.</abbr> 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 than 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.</p>
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<p>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 anyone would have thought a more favourable climate, the rabbit cannot live out of doors. The first few pairs, moreover, had here to content against preexisting enemies, in the fox and some large hawks. The French naturalists have considered the black variety a distinct species, and called it <i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Lepus Magellanicus</i>.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-99" id="noteref-99" epub:type="noteref">99</a> They imagined that Magellan, when talking of an animal under the name of “<i xml:lang="es">conejos</i>” 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!</p>
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<p>The only quadruped native to the island;<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-100" id="noteref-100" epub:type="noteref">100</a> is a large wolf-like fox (<i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Canis antarcticus</i>), 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.</p>
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<p>Molina, from a similarity in habits, thought that this was the same with his “<i xml:lang="es">culpeu</i>”;<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-101" id="noteref-101" epub:type="noteref">101</a> 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 <abbr>St.</abbr> 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.</p>
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<p>Molina, from a similarity in habits, thought that this was the same with his “<i xml:lang="es">culpeu</i>”;<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-101" id="noteref-101" epub:type="noteref">101</a> 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 <abbr>St.</abbr> Salvador Bay and Berkeley Sound. Within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly settled, in all probability this fox will be classed with the dodo, as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth.</p>
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<p>At night (<time datetime="1834-03-17">17th</time>) we slept on the neck of land at the head of Choiseul Sound, which forms the southwest 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.</p>
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<p><span epub:type="se:diary.dateline"><time datetime="1834-03-18">18th</time></span>.—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 tinderbox 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.</p>
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<p><span epub:type="se:diary.dateline"><time datetime="1834-03-19">19th</time></span>.—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. <abbr>St.</abbr> 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. This shows that the Gauchos, although they do not appear to do so, yet really must exert much muscular effort in riding. The hunting wild cattle, in a country so difficult to pass as this is on account of the swampy ground, must be very hard work. The Gauchos say they often pass at full speed over ground which would be impassable at a slower pace; in the same manner as a man is able to skate over thin ice. When hunting, the party endeavours to get as close as possible to the herd without being discovered. Each man carries four or five pair of the bolas; these he throws one after the other at as many cattle, which, when once entangled, are left for some days till they become a little exhausted by hunger and struggling. They are then let free and driven towards a small herd of tame animals, which have been brought to the spot on purpose. From their previous treatment, being too much terrified to leave the herd, they are easily driven, if their strength last out, to the settlement.</p>
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