On the banks of the St. Cruz, in certain circumscribed spaces,
which were generally bushy and all near the river, the ground was
actually white with bones. On one such spot I counted between ten
and twenty heads. I particularly examined the bones; they did not
appear, as some scattered ones which I had seen, gnawed or broken,
as if dragged together by beasts of prey. The animals in most cases
must have crawled, before dying, beneath and amongst the bushes.
Mr. Bynoe informs me that during a former voyage he observed the
same circumstance on the banks of the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all
understand the reason of this, but I may observe, that the wounded
guanacos at the St. Cruz invariably walked towards the river. At
St. Jago in the Cape de Verd Islands, I remember having seen in a
ravine a retired corner covered with bones of the goat; we at the
time exclaimed that it was the burial-ground of all the goats in
the island. I mention these trifling circumstances, because in
certain cases they might explain the occurrence of a number of
uninjured bones in a cave, or buried under alluvial accumulations;
and likewise the cause why certain animals are more commonly
embedded than others in sedimentary deposits.
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