Page:The birds of Tierra del Fuego - Richard Crawshay.djvu/234

114 feathers, which is impenetrable by anything smaller than swan shot. The flavour of their flesh is so strong and fishy, that at first we killed them solely for specimens. Five or six months, however, on salt provisions, taught many to think such food palatable, and the seamen never lost an opportunity of eating them. I have preferred these Ducks to salt beef, but more as a preventive against scurvy, than from liking their taste."

Darwin states this Duck sometimes weighs as much as twenty-two pounds.

Cunningham records no weight, and sets the average length of adult birds at about thirty inches.

Previous observers confine themselves almost wholly to these birds in marine waters. In Tierra del Fuego. I have frequently seen them inland as much as ten or fifteen miles, passing from one piece of water to another, and also—more often—on lagoons unable to fly. What they live on in inland fresh waters, it would be interesting to know. Inland. I have invariably found them in pairs—and once a single bird on the Rio San Martin. On the sea coast. I have seen them in pairs, and in small companies of three or four together. If heavily built—and they are of amazingly massive proportions, particularly as regards the head and neck—they are sharp sighted and sharp-witted. They fly or paddle out of range on the least appearance of danger. Particularly is this the case with birds on the sea shore. They have nothing of that element of curiosity about them, which is remarkable in Œchmophorus major so often found in the same waters in close company. Common as these Ducks are in small scattered communities. I did not obtain a specimen. I shot several at various times, but somehow was always prevented by some untoward circumstance from skinning one. Once I shot a fine male, one of a pair unable to fly, on a pan near the mouth of the Rio San Martin, but could not convey it home in proper condition for skinning: my haversack broke under the weight, and having no saddlebags, and being burdened by a gun, it had to be abandoned. Frequently I found these birds lying dead