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

FISHERY BIRDS. S55 export, is the inexhaustible quantity of fish which swarm in every harbour during the summer. The description which most abounds is a kind of bass, from two to three feet long, and six inches in depth : it takes salt well, and has been ex- ported by cargoes to the river Plata* and to Rio de Janeiro ; and there are delicious small fish in such shoals, that our boats' crews were sometimes obliged to let a large portion escape from the net before they could haul it ashore without tearing.-|- Mr. Vernet said, " We have a great abundance of fish in all the bays, where they come at the beginning of spring to spawn. In the winter season they retire. They enter regularly twice in the twenty-four hours, at about half-flood. They are caught in such numbers, that ten or twelve men salted about sixty tons in less than a month. Generally, they are caught with a net, but they will also take the hook ; they are of a species be- tween the mullet and the salmon, and become very fat towards the end of the summer. They are very good eating, and when salted, some prefer them to the cod-fish." — Vernet, MS. 1831. In the fresh-water ponds, so numerous on the large islands, there is a very delicate fish, somewhat resembling a trout, which may be caught by angling. The shell-fish are chiefly mviscles and clams, both of which are very abundant, and easily ga- thered at low water. It may here be remarked that the cod-fishery ofl" Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego might be turned to very good account by settlers at the Falklands. Of the feathered tribe there are numbers, but not much variety has been found— a natural consequence of the absence of trees. Three or four kinds of geese,:[: two kinds of snipe, several varieties of the duck, occasionally wild swans of two • Where fish, thoug^h plentiful, does not take salt well. t Many tons have been taken at a haul. t One kind of goose, that which has erroneously been called a bustard, arrives in a tame condition, about April or May, with easterly winds. Perhaps these birds come from Sandwich Land, or even Enderby Land. Their tameness may be a consequence of being ignorant of man, or of the half-tired state in which they arrive.