PATAGONIA.

by a thin plaited thong about eight feet long). When sev eral horsemen appear in a semicircle, the bird becomes confounded, and does not know which way to escape. They generally prefer running against the wind, yet at the first start they expand their wings, and like a vessel make all sail. On one fine hot day I saw several ostriches enter a bed of tall rushes, where they squatted concealed till quite closely ap

SKELETON OF AN OSTRICH.

proached. It is not general

ly known that ostriches readily take to the water. Mr. King informs me that at the Bay of San Blas, and at Port Valdes, in Patagonia, he saw these birds swimming several times from island to island. They ran into the water, both when driven down to a point, and likewise of their own accord when not frightened; the distance crossed was about two hundred yards.

When swimming, very little of their bodies appears above water; their necks are stretched a little forward, and their progress is slow. On two occasions I saw some ostriches swimming across the Santa Cruz River, where its course was about four hundred yards wide and the stream rapid. Captain Sturt, when descending the Murrumbidgee, in Australia, saw two emus in the act of swimming.

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.

The inhabitants of the country can readily tell, even at a distance, the cock bird from the hen. The former is larger, and darker colored, and has a bigger head. The ostrich (I believe, the cock) utters a singular deep-toned, hissing note; when I first heard it, standing in the midst of some sand-hillocks, I thought it was made by some wild beast, for it is a sound that one cannot tell whence it comes or from how far distant. When we were at Bahia Blanca, in the months of September and October, the eggs, in extraordinary numbers, were found all over the country. They lie either scattered and single (in which case they are never hatched, and are called by the Spaniards huachos), or they are collected together into a shallow excavation, which forms the nest. Out of the four nests which I saw, three contained twenty-two eggs each, and the fourth twenty-seven. Each of these is said to equal in weight eleven hen eggs; so that we ob tained from this last nest as much food as two hundred and ninety-seven hen eggs would have given. The Gauchos all agree in saying that there is no reason to doubt that the male bird alone hatches the eggs, and for some time. afterward accompanies the young. nest, lies very close; I have myself almost ridden over one. At such times they are said to be occasionally fierce and even dangerous, and to have been known to attack a man on horseback, trying to kick and leap on him. My informer pointed out to me an old man whom he had seen much terrified by one chasing him. I observe, in Burchell's trav els in South Africa, that he remarks, "Having killed a male ostrich, and the feathers being dirty, it was said by the Hot

The cock, when on the

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.

tentots to be a nest bird." I understand that the male emu in the London Zoological Gardens takes charge of the nest: this habit, therefore, is common to the family.

THE CASARITA.

THE casarita (little housebuilder) as the Spaniards call it, from its resemblance to the casara (housebuilder or ovenbird), makes its nest at the bottom of a narrow cylindrical hole, which is said to extend horizontally to nearly six feet under ground. Several of the country people told me that when boys they had attempted to dig out the nest, but had scarcely ever succeeded in getting to the end of the passage. The bird chooses any low bank of firm sandy soil by the side of a road or stream. Here (at Bahia Blanca) the walls round the houses are built of hardened mud, and I noticed that one, which enclosed a courtyard where I lodged, was bored through by round holes in a score of places. On asking the owner the cause of this, he bitterly complained of the little casarita, several of which I afterward observed at work. It is rather curious to find how unable these birds must be to get any idea of thickness, for although they were constantly flitting over the low wall, they kept on vainly boring through it, thinking it an excellent bank for their nests. I do not doubt that each bird, as often as it came to daylight on the opposite side, was greatly surprised at the marvellous fact.

ATLANTIC OCEAN.

TAME BIRDS ON DESERT ISLANDS.

WE found, on St. Paul's Rocks, only two kinds of birds --the booby and the noddy. net, and the latter a tern.

The former is a species of gan.

Both are of a tame and stupid disposition, and are so unused to visitors that I could have

killed any number of them with my geological hammer. The booby lays her eggs on the bare rock; but the tern makes a very simple nest with sea-weed. By the side of many of these nests a small flying-fish was placed, which, I suppose, had been brought by the male bird for its partner. It was amusing to watch how quickly a large and active crab, which inhabits the crevices of the rocks, stole the fish from the side

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS.

of the nest as soon as we had disturbed the parent birds. Sir W. Symonds, one of the few persons who have landed

here, informs me that he saw the crabs dragging even the young birds out of their nests and devouring them.

Extreme tameness is common to all the land-birds in the Galapagos Islands, namely, to the mocking-thrushes, the finches, wrens, tyrant fly-catchers, the dove, and carrion-buzzard. All of them often approached sufficiently near to be killed with a switch, and sometimes, as I myself tried, with a cap or hat. A gun is here almost superfluous; for with the muzzle I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree. One day, while lying down, a mocking-thrush alighted on the edge of a pitcher, made of the shell of a tortoise, which I