Page:The birds of Tierra del Fuego - Richard Crawshay.djvu/231

Rh Oustalet devotes twenty quarto pages and two plates to maintaining two. To this day the sheepmen of Tierra del Fuego are puzzled what to make of this bird: some are aware that it can fly; the majority are of opinion that it cannot. I do not think I came across one who had definitely arrived at the knowledge that the power of flight could be possessed by some individuals and lacking in others.

None of the old voyagers mention having seen this Duck on the wing.

The earliest record of it appears to be that of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa in 1580, who tells us of "Patos pardas y bermejas sui pluma que ne vuelan, sinó á vuela pié corren, y par el agua no se pueden levantar sinó á vuela pie, dando con las alones á manero de remo. Huyen por el agua con mucho velocidad, y desan un rastro por el agua como un bajel quando vaga."

Amongst the birds on which the survivors of the ill-fated "Wager" subsisted on the Guaianeco Islands in 1740—than whom probably no men ever underwent more terrible privations—Byron mentions one "much larger than a Goose, which we called the Race Horse, from the velocity with which it moved upon the surface of the waters, in a sort of half-flying half-running motion."

Pernety alludes to it in the Falkland Islands in 1764 as:—"Une espece de Canard, qui va par paires, quelquefois en troupe, dont les plumes des ailes sont très courtes; aussi ne's'en sert-il que pour se soutenir en courant sur I'eau, & ne vole pas. Si on ne le tue pas roide, it fuit à la surface tant qu'il lui reste un soufle de vie. Sa chair est huileuse & sent le marêcage."

In December 1774. Cook describes Christmas Sound on the south coast of Tierra del Fuego, of which he gives an excellent drawing. "Here," says he, "is a kind of Duck called by our people Race-horses, on account of the great swiftness with which they run on the water; for they cannot fly, the wings being too short to support the body in the air."