Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.1): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

Jan. 1828. laredo bay — port famine. 117 Indians, furnished us with many additions to our zoological collection ; among them was a tiger-cat, which seemed, from the description, to be the Felis pajaros of the Encyclopedic Methodique (the " Chat de Pampa" of D'Azara). Maria gave me a very large bezoar stone, that was taken from the stomach of a guanaco. It is used medicinally by the Indians, as a remedy for bowel complaints.* Whilst we were at the anchorage before Cape Negro, Mr. Tarn and Mr. Wickham visited the lake at the back of Laredo Bay, and saw two swans, which, from the colour of their plumage, seemed to be the black-necked swan of the River Plata and of the Falkland Islandsf (Dom Pernettey, ii. p. 148). They brought on board with them a new species of duck, which is described in the proceedings of the Zoological Society as Anas specularis (Nob.), and a small burrowing animal, of the rat tribe, that, from the character of its teeth, is probably of a genus not hitherto noted : it approaches nearest to F. Cuvier*'s Helamys, We next anchored in Port Famine, where the tents, &c. were replaced in their former positions, the ship was unrigged and secured for the winter, and all hands set to work, prepar- ing the Adelaide for service. * The medicinal property of this intestinal concretion is well knoM'n wherever the animal is found. Marcgrave, in his " Tractatus topogra- phicus et meteorologicus Brasiliae," folio, p. 36, says : — " Haec animalia (guanacoesj generant lapides Bezoares in sinu quodani ventriculi, qui niaximi sestimantur contra venena et febres malignos ad roborandum et refocillandum cor, aliosque affectus. Materia ^ qua generantur sunt herbaj insignis virtutis,quibus vesountur naturae instinctu ad sanitatem tuendum, aut morbos et venena superandum. Hi lapides inveniuntur in adultioribus hisce animalibus atque interdum tarn grandes, ut unum in Italiam attu- lerim (jui pendet uncias duas supra triginta." — Mr. Thompson, on Intes- tinal Concretions. See his Syn. of Chemistry, iv. 576. t Anser niijrocollis, Encyc. Method., art. Ornithol. 108.