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Show ZOOLOGY OF TilE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE. smallm· and less bushy than in the former animals. The contour of the head is wolf-like; the legs, however, are shorter than in the true wolves ; and the tail is white at the apex, a character common in the foxes. . The fur of the Antarctic Fox is moderately long, and the under fur rs not very abundant, especially as compared with. that of ~he C. magella~~i~us. This under fur is of a pale brown colour; the aprcal portton of each hall' IS yellowish; the longer hairs are black at the apex, brown ~t the base, a~d annula~ed with white towards the apex. In many of these han·s the subaprcal pale nng is wanting. On the chest and belly the hairs are of a pale dir~y yellow colour, gray-white at the base, and black at the apex. On the tunder part of the belly the hairs are almost of an uniform tlirty white. The space around the angle of the mouth, the upper lip, and the whole of the throat: a~e white. The chin is brown-white, or brownish. The basal half of the tatl IS of the same colour as the body, and the hairs are of the same texture; on the apical half of the tail they are of a harsher or less woolly nature, of a black colour at the apex, and brownish at the base ; those at the extreme point are totally white. The legs are almost of an uniform fulvous colour; the feet are of a somewhat paler hue; the hairs on the under siue of the hinder feet are brownish, and the external and posterior parts of the tibire are suffused with the same tint. The hairs on the head are grizzled with black and fulvous; the former of these colours is somewhat conspicuous, excepting in the region of the eyes, where the fulvous or yellowish tint prevails. The muzzle is scarcely of so dark a hue as the crown of the head. The ears are furnished internally with long white hairs, externally the hairs are yellowish, with their apices black; the latter colour is more conspicuous towards the tip of the ear. The sides of the neck near the ear· are of a rich fulvous hue. Length from nose to root of tail from tip of nose to car of tail (hair included) Habitat, Falkland Islands. In. Lines. 36 0 7 3 13 0 Length of c11r Height of body 11t shoulders ln. Lines . 2 15 0 "Three specimens of this animal were brought to England by Capt. FitzRoy; from one of which, the above drawing and description has been made. The earliest notice I can find of this animal is by Pernety,* during Bougainville's voyage, which was untlertaken in 1764-, for the plll'pose of colonizing these islands. The strange familiarity of its manner seems to have excited the fears of some of * Journal Ilistorique d'un Voyttge fttit aux Ilcs Malouincs, tom. ii. p. 45!>. :MAMMALIA. 9 the seamen in Commodore Byron's voyage (in 17G5) in rather a ludicrous manner. Byron says th~t seals were not the only dangerous animals that they found, "for the master h~vmg been sent out one day to sound the coast upon the south shore, t·cported at h~s rctu.rn ~hat four creatures of great fierceness, resembling wolves, ran up to then· belhes 10 the water to attack the people in his boat, and that as the~ happened to have no fire-arms with them, they had immediately put the boat off m deep water." Byron adds that, ~' When any of these creatures got sight of our people, though at ever so great a d1stancc, they ran uirectly at them ; and no less than five of them were killed this day. They were always called wolves b the ship's company, but, except in their size, and the shape of the tail, I thin~ they bore a greater resemblance to a fox. They arc as big as a middle-sized mastiff, and their fangs arc remarkably long anti sharp. There are great numbers of tl~em up~n this c~ast, though it is not perhaps easy to guess how they first came luther; for these 1slanus are at least one huntlred leagues distant from the main. Th~y burrow in the ground like a fox, and we have frequently seen pieces of seals whiCh they have mangled, and the skins of penguins lie scattered about the mouths of their holes. To get rid of these creatures, our people set fire to the grass, so that the country was in a blaze as far as the eye could reach, for several days, and we could see them running in great numbers to seck other quarters." ~he habits of these animals remain nearly the same to the present day, although theu numbers have been greatly decreased by the singular facility with which they are destroyed. I was assured by several of the Spanish countrymen, who are employed in hunting the cattle which have run wild on these islands, that they have repeatedly killed them by means of a knife heltl in one hand, and a piece of meat to tempt them to approach, in the other. They range over the whole island, but perhaps arc most numerous ncar the coast; in the inland parts they must subsist almost exclusively on the upland geese, ( Anser lettcopterus,) whiclJ, from fear of them, like the eider-ducks of Iceland, build only on the smaU outlying islets. !hese wol~es do not go in packs; they wander about by day, but more commonly m the. evemng ; they burrow holes; are generally very silent, excepting during the brccdmg season, when they utter cries, which were described to me as resembling those of the Canis Azara:. Spaniards and half-cast Indians, from several districts of the southern portions of South America, have visited these islantls, and they all declare that the wolf is not found on the mainlantl ; the sealers likewise say it does not occur on Georgia, Sandwich Land, or the other islands in the Antarctic ocean. I entertain, therefore, no doubt, that the Canis antm·cticus is peculiar to this ~rchipelago. It is found both on East and West Falkland, as might have been ~nfened from the accounts given by Bougainville and Byron, who visited different Islands ;-I state this particularly, because the contrary has been asserted. I was c |