Note 1. Aptenodytes Patachonica. This singular bird has been christened “Jackass penguin” by sailors, on account of its curious note, which bears an odd resemblance to the bray of an ass. “King penguin” is another of its names, from its superior size, as it is the largest of the auk or penguin family.
Chapter Seven.
A World on a Weed.
A pair of penguin “squabs” makes an ample dinner for the entire party, nor is it without the accompaniment of vegetables; these being supplied by the tussac-grass, the stalks of which contain a white edible substance, in taste somewhat resembling a hazel-nut, while the young shoots boiled are almost equal to asparagus. (Note 1.)
While seated at their midday meal, they have before their eyes a moving world of nature, such as may be found only in her wildest solitudes. All around the kelp-bed, porpoises are ploughing the water, now and then bounding up out of it; while seals and sea-otters show their human-like heads, swimming among the weeds. Birds hover above in such numbers as to darken the air, some at intervals darting down and going under with a plunge that sends the spray aloft in showers white as a snow-drift. Others do their fishing seated on the water; for there are many different kinds of water-fowl here represented—gulls, shags, cormorants, gannets, noddies, and petrels, with several species of Anativae, among them the beautiful black-necked swan. Nor are they all seabirds, or exclusively inhabitants of the water. Among those wheeling in the air above is an eagle and a small black vulture, with several sorts of hawks—the last, the Chilian jota (Note 2). Even the gigantic condor often extends its flight to the Land of Fire, whose mountains are but a continuation of the great Andean chain.
The ways and movements of this teeming ornithological world are so strange and varied that our castaways, despite all anxiety about their own future, cannot help being interested in observing them. They see a bird of one kind diving and bringing to the surface a fish, which another, of a different species, snatches from it and bears aloft, in its turn to be attacked by a third equally rapacious winged hunter, that, swooping at the robber, makes him forsake his ill-gotten prey, while the prey itself, reluctantly dropped, is dexterously re-caught in its whirling descent long ere it reaches its own element—the whole incident forming a very chain of tyranny and destruction! And yet a chain of but few links compared with that to be found in and under the water, among the leaves and stalks of the kelp itself. There the destroyers and the destroyed are legion, not only in numbers, but in kind. A vast world in itself, so densely populated and of so many varied organisms that, for a due delineation of it, I must again borrow from the inimitable pen of Darwin. Thus he describes it:—
“The number of living creatures of all orders, whose existence entirely depends on the kelp, is wonderful. A great volume might be written describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of seaweed. Almost all the leaves, excepting those that float on the surface, are so thickly encrusted with corallines as to be of a white colour. We find exquisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by simple hydra-like polyps, others by more organised kinds. On the leaves, also, various shells, uncovered molluscs, and bivalves are attached. Innumerable Crustacea frequent every part of the plant. On shaking the great entangled roots, a pile of small fish-shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of all orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, sea-cucumbers, and crawling sea-centipedes of a multitude of forms, all fall out together. Often as I recurred to the kelp, I never failed to discover animals of new and curious structures... I can only compare these great aquatic forests of the Southern Hemisphere with the terrestrial ones of the inter-tropical regions. Yet, if in any country a forest were destroyed, I do not believe so many species of animals would perish as would here from the destruction of the kelp. Amidst the leaves of this plant numerous species of fish live, which nowhere else could find food or shelter; with their destruction, the many cormorants and other fishing-birds, the otters, seals, and porpoises, would perish also; and lastly, the Fuegian savage, the miserable lord of this miserable land, would redouble his cannibal feats, decrease in numbers, and perhaps cease to exist.”