[18]

Mackinnon's Pamphlet on the Falkland Islds & (Struggle for Existence)

(Q) p 24. "on N. side of this isld as far as Port Pleasant, the cattle are generally of a dark colour, some bulls being of the most jetty black; to the southward they get lighter & lighter, until at the extreme S. at times, you meet with whole herds of a beautiful white colour."

[Variation 1: 67: "Cattle have run wild there during eighty or ninety years; and in the southern districts the animals are mostly white, with their feet, or whole heads, or only their ears black; but my informant, Admiral Sulivan,56 who long resided on these islands, does not believe that they are ever purely white.

56 See also Mr. Mackinnon's pamphlet on the Falkland Islands, p. 24."]

Q p. 25. Average length of horses 14 hands. 2 inches — Capt FitzRoy — says they form a circle round a mare & prance.—

[Variation 1: 52: "Further south, in the Falkland Islands, the offspring of the horses imported in 1764 have already so much deteriorated in size18 and strength that they are unfitted for catching wild cattle with the lasso; so that fresh horses have to be brought for this purpose from La Plata at a great expense.
18 Mr. Mackinnon on 'The Falkland Islands,' p. 25. The average height of the Falkland horses is said to be 14 hands 2 inches. See also my 'Journal of Researches.'"]

p. 24. The wild horses never leave the N. side of the isld which is most singular, as there is no obstruction; it has never been satisfactorily accounted

[18v]

Ch 5

p 29— colonies of rabbits have lately been carried S of the hills & are rapidly increasing—

These facts of the ranges of animals in this island are very singular

speaks of the rabbit-warrens as immense.