The Brazilian fox (Canis Azaræ) is also met with as far as the strait. It is somewhat smaller than our fox, but more robustly built. In Patagonia it preys chiefly upon the small rodents, with which the land, in spite of its sterility, is perhaps more richly stocked than any other country in the world. Among these the tucutuco (Ctenomys magellanica), which may briefly be described as a gnawer with the habits of a mole, is one of the most remarkable. It abounds near the strait, where the sandy plain is one vast burrow of these creatures. This curious animal makes, when beneath the ground, a very peculiar noise, consisting of a short nasal grunt, monotonously repeated about four times in quick succession, the name tucutuco being given in imitation of the sound. Where the animal is abundant, it may be heard at all times of the day, and sometimes directly beneath one’s feet. The tucutuco is nocturnal in its habits; its food consists chiefly of roots, the search after which seems to be the cause of its burrowing.
Among the indigenous quadrupeds of Patagonia we find, moreover, a species of agouti (Dasyprocta patagonica), which in some measure represents our hare, but is about twice the size, and has only three toes on its hind feet; the elegant long-eared mara (Dolichotis patagonicus), which, unlike most burrowing animals, wanders, commonly two or three together, for miles from its home; the Didelphis Azaræ, a species of opossum; and the pichy (Dasypus minutus), a small armadillo, which extends as far south as 50° lat.
It would be vain to seek among the Patagonian birds for the splendid plumage of the tropical feathered tribes; their colors are simple and monotonous, as those of the naked plains which are their home. Many birds of prey of the warmer regions of America likewise frequent the arid wastes of Patagonia. When a horse chances to perish from fatigue or thirst, the turkey-buzzard (Vultur aura?) begins to feast upon its carcass, and then the carrancha (Polyborus brasiliensis) and the chimango (Polyborus chimango) pick its bones clean. Though these birds, which well supply the place of our carrion-crows, magpies, and ravens, generally feed in common, they are by no means on a friendly footing. When the carrancha is quietly seated on the branch of a tree or on the ground, the chimango often continues for a long time flying backward and forward, up and down, in a semicircle, trying each time, at the bottom of the curve, to strike its larger relative, which takes little notice except by bobbing its head. The carrancha, which is common in the dry and open countries, and likewise on the arid shores of the Pacific, is also found inhabiting the forests of West Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. The chimango is much smaller than the carrancha. Of all the carrion feeders, it is generally the last which leaves the skeleton of a dead animal, and may frequently be seen within the ribs of a horse, like a prisoner behind a grating. It is frequently found on the sea-coast, where it lives on small fishes.
The condor may likewise be reckoned among the Patagonian birds, as it follows its prey, the guanaco, across the Strait of Magellan as far as the eastern lowlands of Tierra del Fuego. In the winter especially, when the cold forces vast numbers of geese and ducks to quit the Antarctic islands in the higher latitudes, all these birds of prey, to which the crowned falcon (Circætes coronatus), the three-colored buzzard (Buteo tricolor), the Aguia eagle (Haliatus aguia), and several others must be added, live in luxury. Most of them are likewise migratory birds, and disappear in summer, with the defenseless tribes on which they prey. The Magellanic thrush (Turdus magellanicus) leaves in winter the stormy banks of the strait, and retires to the milder skies of the Rio Negro, where it meets the tuneful Patagonian warbler (Orpheus patagonicus), the nimble troglodyte (Troglodytes pallida), and the inconstant fly-catcher (Muscicape parvulus).
A peculiar species of ostrich, the nandu (Rhea Darwini), roams over the plains of Southern Patagonia as far as the Strait of Magellan. It is smaller than the South American ostrich (Rhea americana), which inhabits the country of La Plata as far as a little south of the Rio Negro; but it is more beautiful, as its white feathers are tipped with black at the extremity, and its black ones in like manner terminate in white.
In the same high latitude one is surprised to meet with a member of the parrot tribe (Psittacus patagonicus) feeding on the seeds of the winter’s bark, and to see humming-birds (Trochilus forficatus) flitting about during the snowstorms in the forests of Tierra del Fuego.
The plains of Patagonia are inhabited by a race of Indians supposed to be gigantic, but the descriptions of modern travellers have dispelled the idea. Thus Pigafetti, the companion of Magellan, relates that the Europeans only reach to the waist of the Patagonians; Simon de Weert tells us that they are from ten to eleven feet high; Byron, who visited them in the last century, reduces them to seven feet, and Captain King finally, who accurately measured them, found the medium height of the males about five feet eleven inches. As the Patagonians have most likely not degenerated within the last few centuries, we may infer from these various accounts that the travellers of the present day are less prone to exaggeration than those of more ancient times. So much is certain, that the Patagonians are a fine athletic race of men, with remarkably broad shoulders and thick muscular limbs. The head is long, broad, and flat, and the forehead low, with the hair growing within an inch of the eyebrows, which are bare; the eyes are often placed obliquely, and have but little expression; the forehead and the large lips are prominent, so that if a perpendicular line were drawn between the two, the thick flat nose would hardly reach it, and but seldom project beyond it. In spite of these coarse features the physiognomy of the young girls is by no means unpleasant, as it has an amiable, lively expression. All of them have small hands and feet, and D’Orbigny says that they have the finest shapes of all the savages he saw. Though they have a wide mouth and thick lips, this fault is redeemed by their beautiful white teeth, which never fall out even in old age.
The color of the Patagonians is much darker than that of the Pampas Indians and others farther to the north, and most closely resembles that of the mulatto; a fact totally at variance with the common belief that the darkness of the human skin increases on approaching the equator.
The chief garment is the manuhé, a wide, square mantle—eight feet long and nearly as broad—which they wear after the fashion of the ancient Greeks and Romans, with one end hanging down to the earth. It generally consists of guanaco skins neatly sewn together with ostrich sinews. In cold weather the manuhé, which serves also as a blanket, is worn with the hair inside; the even surface is therefore ornamented with red drawings. Sometimes they wear boots of horse-leather, like the Gauchos, from whom they have learned to make them; formerly sandals of guanaco skin were alone in use. Their long black hair is tied behind with a thong of leather or a piece of ribbon; the women plait and adorn it with a number of ornaments of glass and copper. The face is generally painted red, white, and black, and a Patagonian is never seen without the little pouch in which he carries the necessary colors. A remarkable custom, common to all the Indian tribes as far as Bolivia, is that of eradicating the hairs of the beard, and the men may frequently be seen plucking them out with a pair of pincers.
The religious ideas of the Patagonians greatly resemble those of their neighbors the Aucas and the Puelches. The divine Achekenat Kanet is reverenced as the genius of both good and evil; but beside this chief deity they have a number of inferior spirits, generally of a malignant nature, which can be held in check only by the arts of their magicians. Like the shamans, or medicine-men of the north, these impostors work themselves into an ecstatic state, in which they predict things to come, or announce the will of the unseen gods; but their trade does not seem to be very lucrative if we may judge from the bad condition of their mantles. They also act as physicians, for all diseases are invariably ascribed to the agency of evil spirits.