His only culinary faux pas occurred in December 1833, at Port Desire, when the ship’s artist procured a rhea (a large flightless bird indigenous to Altiplano and Patagonia in South America) for Christmas dinner. Darwin writes in his notes that he suddenly realized he was eating an extremely rare Avestruz petise. He immediately jumped up from the table and tried to rescue the remains of the unfortunate avian victim. He managed to salvage “the head and neck, the legs, and many of the larger feathers.”