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

288 FOIJCED CONTRIBUTIONS BIRDS. 1829. tax, to the government ; but forced contributions may be required, when the necessities of the state demand them. These contributions are sometimes unfairly levied in Chile ; for the subsidy is only taken from those who possess grain, or some equally tangible article which can easily be turned into money ; so that persons who are rich enough to live without culti- vating land, or trading for their support, contribute nothing towards the emergency of the State. How does this accord with republican principles ? or how can a republican govern- ment, so conducted, expect to become respectable among nations ? I am not aware that s\ich contributions have yet been levied in Childe. From the character of General Aldunate, I do not for a moment think lie would commit such an act of injustice but it is in the power of any Yntendente to call for them, and I afterwards witnessed an example of this, during my visit to Concepcion. A considerable quantity of wheat, purchased by a Russian vessel, for the use of their settlements on the coast of California, was brought down to the port, at a time when the government was much in want of money, and knew no just way of obtaining it. They therefore very unceremoniously seized the wheat, and applied its value in dollars to their own use, giving only an uncertain, almost a nominal security to the owner for the recovery of his money. The only way of accounting for such an arbitrary proceeding is, that the country was distracted by civil war, and tliat the person who owned the property was opposed to that party, which at the time happened to have the upper hand, and which held, by main strength alone, the reins of government. Among the birds of Chiloe, the most remarkable are the 'Cagge,' the ' Cancania,' or 'Canquenaj'andthe 'Barking bird.'* • Molina notices the ' Cag-ge,' or ' Childe duck,' {Anas nntarctica) vol. i. p. 268, and calls it Anas hyhrida. M. Lesson, 'in his ' Manuel d'OrnithoIogie,' ii. 409, has taken great pains to describe it, and remarks, with reason, that much obscurity exists in the specific descriptions of the goose kind in the Malouine (Falkland) Islands, and the extreme southern land of America. The male, Lesson says, is white, the feet and beak of a brisrlit