The cattle, instead of having degenerated like the horse seem, as before remarked, to have increased in size; an they are much more numerous than the horses Capt. Sulivan informs me that they vary much less in the genera form of their bodies and in the shape of their horns tha English cattle. In colour they differ much; and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in different parts of this on small island, different colours predominate. Round Moun Usborne, at a height of from 1000 to 1500 feet above the sea about half of some of the herds are mouse or lead-coloured a tint which is not common in other parts of the island Near Port Pleasant dark brown prevails, whereas south o Choiseul Sound (which almost divides the island into tw parts), white beasts with black heads and feet are the mos common: in all parts black, and some spotted animals ma be observed. Capt. Sulivan remarks, that the difference i the prevailing colours was so obvious, that in looking fo the herds near Port Pleasant, they appeared from a lon distance like black spots, whilst south of Choiseul Soun they appeared like white spots on the hill-sides. Capt. Sulivan thinks that the herds do not mingle; and it is a singula fact, that the mouse-coloured cattle, though living on th high land, calve about a month earlier in the season tha the other coloured beasts on the lower land. It is interesting thus to find the once domesticated cattle breakin into three colours, of which some one colour would in al probability ultimately prevail over the others, if the herd were left undisturbed for the next several centuries.
The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced and has succeeded very well; so that they abound over larg parts of the island. Yet, like the horses, they are confine within certain limits; for they have not crossed the centra chain of hills, nor would they have extended even so far a its base, if, as the Gauchos informed me, small colonies ha not been carried there. I should not have supposed tha these animals, natives of northern Africa, could have existe in a climate so humid as this, and which enjoys so littl sunshine that even wheat ripens only occasionally. It i asserted that in Sweden, which any one would have though a more favourable climate, the rabbit cannot live out o doors. The first few pairs, moreover, had here to conten against pre-existing enemies, in the fox and some larg hawks. The French naturalists have considered the black variety a distinct species, and called it Lepus Magellanicus. [5 They imagined that Magellan, when talking of an anima 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 by the Spaniards. Th Gauchos laughed at the idea of the black kind being different from the grey, and they said that at all events it ha not extended its range any further than the grey kind; tha the two were never found separate; and that they readil bred together, and produced piebald offspring. Of the latte I now possess a specimen, and it is marked about the hea differently from the French specific description. This circumstance shows how cautious naturalists should be i making species; for even Cuvier, on looking at the skul of one of these rabbits, thought it was probably distinct!
The only quadruped native to the island [6]; is a large wolf like fox (Canis antarcticus), which is common to both Eas and West Falkland. I have no doubt it is a peculiar species and confined to this archipelago; because many sealers Gauchos, and Indians, who have visited these islands, al maintain that no such animal is found in any part of Sout America.
Molina, from a similarity in habits, thought that thi was the same with his "culpeu;" [7] but I have seen both and they are quite distinct. These wolves are well know from Byron's account of their tameness and curiosity, whic the sailors, who ran into the water to avoid them, mistoo for fierceness. To this day their manners remain the same They have been observed to enter a tent, and actually pul some meat from beneath the head of a sleeping seaman. Th Gauchos also have frequently in the evening killed them by holding out a piece of meat in one hand, and in the othe a knife ready to stick them. As far as I am aware, ther is no other instance in any part of the world, of so smal a mass of broken land, distant from a continent, possessin so large an aboriginal quadruped peculiar to itself. Thei numbers have rapidly decreased; they are already banishe from that half of the island which lies to the eastward o the neck of land between St. Salvador Bay and Berkele Sound. Within a very few years after these islands shal have become regularly settled, in all probability this fo will be classed with the dodo, as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth.