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

4 OYSTERS — auADRUPEDs. Dec. 1896. crews of sealing vessels ; but, except in the rainy season, they all contain saltish water. This observation is applicable to nearly the whole extent of the porphyritic country. Oyster- shells, three or four inches in diameter, were found, scattered over the hills, to the height of three or four hundred feet above the sea. Sir John Narborough, in 1652, found oyster-shells at Port San Julian ; but, from a great many which have been lately collected there, we know that they are of a species different from that found at Port Santa Elena. Both are fossils. No recent specimen of the genus Ostrea was found by us on any part of the Patagonian coast. Narborough, in noticing those at Port San Julian, says, " They are the biggest oyster- shells that I ever saw, some six, some seven inches broad, yet not one oyster to be found in the harbour : whence I conclude they were here Avhen the world was formed." The short period of our visit did not enable us to add much to natural history. Of quadrupeds we saw guanacoes, foxes, cavies, and the armadillo ; but no traces of the puma (Felis concolor), or South American lion, although it is to be met with in the interior. I mentioned that a herd of guanacoes was feeding near the shore when we arrived. Every exertion was made to obtain some of the animals ; but, either from their shyness, or our igno- rance of the mode of entrapping them, we tried in vain, until the arrival of a small sealing-vessel, which had hastened to our assistance, upon seeing the fires we had accidentally made, but which her crew thought were intended for signals of distress. They shot two, and sent some of the meat on board the Adven- ture. The next day, Mr. Tarn succeeded in shooting one, a female, which, when skinned and cleaned, weighed 168 lbs. Narborough mentions having killed one at Port San Julian, that weighed, " cleaned in his quarters, 268 lbs." The watch- ful and wary character of this animal is very remarkable. Whenever a herd is feeding, one is posted, like a sentinel, on a height ; and, at the approach of danger, gives instant alarm by a loud neigh, when away they all go, at a hand-gallop, to the next eminence, where they quietly resume their feeding.