Annual report on the Falkland Islands and Dependencies / Colonial Office.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1951]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on the Falkland Islands and Dependencies / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/60 (page 23)
    Nearly two hundred species of wild plants have been recorded but in the past two years several other species have been found. The standard work on the flora, Skottsberg’s Botanical Survey is, there¬ fore, by no means complete. In an area so sparsely populated as the Falklands visits of unusual birds pass unnoticed and the status of many plants and mammals is obviously difficult to assess. Consequently there is ample opportunity for anyone interested in wild life to contribute to the knowledge of Falkland flora and fauna. Chapter 3 : History The honour of first sighting the Falklands is thought to belong to Captain John Davies, who observed the group from his ship Desire in 1592. He sailed from Plymouth in an expedition commanded by Admiral Cavendish with the Philippines and the Coast of Chins, via Cape Horn, as their destination. John Jane, the historian of the voyage described the discovery of the islands as follows : “The Ninth (Aug. 1592) wee had a sore storme, so that wee were con¬ strained to hull, for our sails were not to indure any force. The 14 wee were driven in among certaine Isles never before discovered by any knowen relation, lying fiftie leagues from the shoare East and Northerly from the Streights ; in which place, unlesse it had pleased God of his wonderfull mercie to have ceases the winde, wee must of necessitie have perished. But the winde shifting to the East, wee directed our course for the Streights, and the 18 of August wee fell with the Cape (Virgin) in a very thick fogge ; and the same night wee ankered ten leagues within the Cape.” These isles were the Falkland Islands. Two years later Sir Richard Hawkins reports having seen them, and calling them “ Hawkin’s Maidenland ” after Queen Elizabeth, and a Dutchman, Sebald Van Weerdt, in 1598, appears to have visited some of the out-lying islands, thought to be the Jasons, on the north-west coast. They were long named the Sebaldine Islands and are so shown on a map hanging in the Secretariat at Port Stanley, bearing a date “about 1790.” The Falklands were so named by Captain Strong after Viscount Falkland, Treasurer of the Navy, in 1690. He sailed in Welfare between the West and East Falkland and called the passage Falkland Sound. But it does not appear that this name was applied to the group as a whole before 1745. To historians the islands are known also as “ Les Malouines ” after Viscomte de Bougainville who sailed from the Brittany port of St. Malo ; the Spanish variant is used on the mainland of South America “ Las Islas Malvinas.”