Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

252 CHANGES IN ANIMALS. bits, rats and mice, eggs, seals, &c., and to their habits of attacking king-penguins, if not seal, while alive, I presume that a part of their unhesitating approach to man maybe traced. Naturalists say that these foxes are peculiar to this archipe- lago, and they find difficulty in accounting for their presence in that quarter only.* That they are now peculiar cannot be doubted ; but how long they have been so is a very different question. As I know that three hairy sheep, brought to Eng- land from Sierra Leone in Africa, became woolly in a few years, and that woolly sheep soon become hairy in a hot coun- try (besides that their outward form alters considerably after a few generations) ; and as I have both seen and heard of wild cats, known to have been born in a domestic state, whose size surpassed that of their parents so much as to be remarkable ; whose coats had become long and rough ; and whose phy- siognomies were quite difterent from those of their race who were still domestic ; I can see nothing extraordinary in foxes carried from Tierra del Fuego to Falkland Island becoming: longer-legged, more bulky, and differently coated. But how were they carried there ? In this manner : — In page 242, the current was mentioned which always sets from Staten Land towards the southern shores of the Falklands — icebergs or trees • Forster, as an exception, saw no difficulty in accounting for their involuntary migration. " M. Forster, Anglais, de la Societe Royale, qui a fait a cet ouvrage I'honneur de le traduire, a accompagne sa traduction de plusieurs notes." — " Je dois dire que toutes ses notes ne sontpas egale- nient justes ; par exemple, dans le chapftre de I'Histoire Naturelle des lies Malouines, il est surpris de ce que je le suis d'avoir trouve sur ces Jles un animal quadrup^de, et de mon embarras sur la manifere dont il a ete transporte. II ajoute qu'ayant pass6 comme je I'ai fait plusieurs annees en Canada, j'aurois dft savoir que des quadrupfedes terrestres se trouvant sur de grandes glaces au moment oh. elles sont d6tachees des terres, sont emportees a la haute mer, et abordent a des c6tes fort eloi- gnees de leur pays natal, sur lesquelles ces masses de glace viennent echouer. Je sais ce fait ; mais M. Forster ne sait pas que jamais les voyageurs n'ont rencontre de glaces flottantes dans les environs des fles Malouines, etque dans ces contrees il ne s'y en peut pas former, n'yayant ni grand fleuve ni meme aucune riviere un peu considerable.— Voyage jie Bougainville, seconde edition, torn. i. pp. xiv. et xv. (note).