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Show 248 FALKLAND ISLANDS. March, 1834. determined to render him for the future innocuous. It was very interesting to see how art completely mastered force One lazo was thrown over his horns, as he rushed at the horse, and another round his hind legs : in a minute the monster was stretched harmless on the ground. After the lazo has once been tightly drawn round the horns of a furious animal, it does not at first appear an easy thing to disengage it again ; nor, I apprehend, .would i~ be so, if the man was by himself, and he did not Wish to ~Ill ~he beast. By the aid, however, of a second person throwmg h1s lazo, s.o as to catch both hind legs, it is quickly managed: for the ammal, as long as its hind legs are kept outstretched, is qui:e powerless, and the first man can with his hands loosen Ius lazo, and then quietly mount his horse ; but the mom~nt the second man, by backing ever so little, relaxes the stram, the lazo slips off the legs of the struggling beast, which thus rises free, shakes himself, and vainly rushes after his antagonist. During our whole ride we only saw one troop of wild horses. These animals, ·as well as the cattle, were introduced by the French in 1764, since which time they have greatly increased. It is a curious fact, that the horses have never left the eastern end of the island, although there is no natural boundary to prevent them from roaming, and that part of the island is not more tempting than the rest. The Gauchos, though asserting this to be the. case, are unable to account for the circumstance. The horses appear to thrive well, yet they are small sized, and have lost so much strength, that they are unfit to be used in taking ":ild cattle with the lazo. In consequence, it is necessary to go to the great expense of importing fresh horses from the Plata. At some future period the southern hemisphere probably will have its breed of Falkland ponies, as the northern has that of Shetland. The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced, and has succeeded very well ; so that they abound over large parts of the island. Yet, like the horses, they are confined March, 1834. WILD ANIMALS. 249 within certain limits ; for they have not crossed the central chain of hills ; nor would they have extended even so far as the base, if, as the Gauchos informed me, small colonies had not been carried there. I should not have supposed that these animals, natives of northern Africa, could have existed in a climate so extremely humid as this, and which enjoys so little sunshine that even wheat ripens only occasionally. It is asserted that in Sweden, which any one would have thought a more favourable climate, the rabbit cannot live out of doors. The first few pair moreover had here to contend against pre-existing enemies, in the fox, and some large hawks. The French naturalists have considered the black variety a distinct species, and called it Lepus Magellanicus.* They imagined that Magellan, when talking of an animal under the name of "conejos," in the Strait of Magellan, referred to this species ; but he was alluding to a small cavy, which to this day is thus called. The Gauchos laughed at the idea of the black kind being different from the gray, and they said that at all events it had not extended its range any further than the other; that the two were never found separate; and that they readily bred together, and produced piebald offspring. Of the latter I now possess a specimen, and it is marked about the head, differently from the French specific description. This circumstance shows how cautious naturalists should be in making species ; for even Cuvier, on looking at the skull of one of these rabbits, thought it was probably distinct. The only quadruped native to the island, is a large wolf-like fox,t which is common to both East and West Falkland. I • Lesson's Zoology of the Voyage of the Coquille, vol. i., p. 168. All the early voyagers, and especially Bougainville, distinctly state that the wolf-like fox was the only native animal on the island. The distinction of this rabbit as a species, is taken from peculiarities in the fur, from the shape of the head, and from the shortness of the ears. I may here observe that the difference between the Irish and English hare, rests llpon nearly similar characters, only more strongly marked. t I have reason to believe there is likewise a field· mouse. .The com- |