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

254 VARIETIES OF ANIMALS. change, whatevei' it may be, is once effected, the race no longer varies while under similar circumstances; but to fancy that every kind of mouse which differs externally from the mouse of another country is a distinct species, is to me as difficult to believe as that every variety of dog and every variety of the human race constitute a distinct species. I think that naturalists who assert the contrary are bound to examine the comparative anatomy of all these varieties more fully, and to tell us how far they differ. My own opinion is, judging from what I have gathered on the subject from various sources, that their ana- tomical arrangement is as uniformly similar as that of the dogs and of the varieties of man. On East Falkland there are numbers of rabbits, whose stock is derived from those carried there by Bougainville or the Spa- niards. Among them were some black ones (when I was there), which had been pronounced indigenous, or, at all events, not brought from Europe. A specimen of these pseudo-indigenous animals has been carefully examined by those to whom a new species is a treasure, but it turns out to be a common rabbit. Sea-elephant and seal (both hair and fur-seal) were abundant along the shores of the archipelago in former years, and by management they might soon be encouraged to frequent them again;* but now they are annually becoming scarcer, and if means are not taken to prevent indiscriminate slaughter, at any time of year, one of the most profitable sources of revenue at the Falklands will be destroyed. Whales frequent the surrounding waters at particular sea- sons, and they are still to be found along the coasts of Pata- gonia and Tierra del Fuego (within easy reach from the Falk- lands), though their numbers are very much diminished by the annual attacks of so many whale-ships, both large and small, which have made the Falklands their head-quarters during the last twenty years. A valuable source of daily supply, and by salting, of foreign * On the little island ' Lobos,' in the river Plata, passed and there- fore to a certain degree disturbed daily by shipping, seals are numerous ; being preserved like game, and destroyed only at intervals.