The Voyage of the Beagle

Endnotes

I must take this opportunity of returning my sincere thanks to Mr. Bynoe, the surgeon of the Beagle, for his very kind attention to me when I was ill at Valparaiso. ↩
I state this on the authority of Dr. E. Dieffenbach, in his German translation of the first edition of this journal. ↩
The Cape de Verd Islands were discovered in 1449. There was a tombstone of a bishop with the date of 1571; and a crest of a hand and dagger, dated 1497. ↩
I must take this opportunity of acknowledging the great kindness with which this illustrious naturalist has examined many of my specimens. I have sent (June, 1845) a full account of the falling of this dust to the Geological Society. ↩
So named according to Patrick Symes’s nomenclature. ↩
See Encyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology, article “Cephalopoda.” ↩
Mr. Horner and Sir David Brewster have described (Philosophical Transactions, 1836, page 65) a singular “artificial substance resembling shell.” It is deposited in fine, transparent, highly polished, brown-coloured laminae, possessing peculiar optical properties, on the inside of a vessel, in which cloth, first prepared with glue and then with lime, is made to revolve rapidly in water. It is much softer, more transparent, and contains more animal matter, than the natural incrustation at Ascension; but we here again see the strong tendency which carbonate of lime and animal matter evince to form a solid substance allied to shell. ↩
Personal Narrative, volume V, part 1, page 18. ↩
M. Montagne, in Comptes Rendus, etc., Juillet, 1844; and Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Dec. 1844 ↩
M. Lesson (Voyage de la Coquille, tome I, page 255) mentions red water off Lima, apparently produced by the same cause. Peron, the distinguished naturalist, in the Voyage aux Terres Australes, gives no less than twelve references to voyagers who have alluded to the discoloured waters of the sea (volume II page 239). To the references given by Peron may be added, Humboldt’s Personal Narrative, volume VI page 804; Flinder’s Voyage, volume I page 92; Labillardiere, volume I page 287; Ulloa’s Voyage; Voyage of the Astrolabe and of the Coquille; Captain King’s Survey of Australia, etc. ↩
Vênda, the Portuguese name for an inn. ↩
Annales des Sciences Naturelles for 1833. ↩
I have described and named these species in the Annals of Natural History, volume XIV page 241. ↩
I am greatly indebted to Mr. Waterhouse for his kindness in naming for me this and many other insects, and giving me much valuable assistance. ↩
Kirby’s Entomology, volume II page 317. ↩
Mr. Doubleday has lately described (before the Entomological Society, March 3rd, 1845) a peculiar structure in the wings of this butterfly, which seems to be the means of its making its noise. He says, “It is remarkable for having a sort of drum at the base of the fore wings, between the costal nervure and the subcostal. These two nervures, moreover, have a peculiar screw-like diaphragm or vessel in the interior.” I find in Langsdorff’s travels (in the years 1803⁠–⁠7, page 74) it is said, that in the island of St. Catherine’s on the coast of Brazil, a butterfly called Februa Hoffmanseggi, makes a noise, when flying away, like a rattle. ↩
I may mention, as a common instance of one day’s (June 23rd) collecting, when I was not attending particularly to the Coleoptera, that I caught sixty-eight species of that order. Among these, there were only two of the Carabidae, four Brachelytra, fifteen Rhyncophora, and fourteen of the Chrysomelidae. Thirty-seven species of Arachnidae, which I brought home, will be sufficient to prove that I was not paying overmuch attention to the generally favoured order of Coleoptera. ↩
In a MS. in the British Museum by Mr. Abbott, who made his observations in Georgia; see Mr. A. White’s paper in the Annals of Natural History, volume VII page 472. Lieut. Hutton has described a sphex with similar habits in India, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, volume I page 555. ↩
Don Felix Azara (volume I page 175), mentioning a hymenopterous insect, probably of the same genus, says he saw it dragging a dead spider through tall grass, in a straight line to its nest, which was one hundred and sixty-three paces distant. He adds that the wasp, in order to find the road, every now and then made “demi-tours d’environ trois palmes.” ↩
Azara’s Voyage, volume I page 213 ↩
Hearne’s Journey, page 383. ↩
Maclaren, art. “America,” Encyclopedia Brittannica ↩
Azara says, “Je crois que la quantite annuelle des pluies est, dans toutes ces contrees, plus considerable qu’en Espagne.” —Volume I page 36 ↩
In South America I collected altogether twenty-seven species of mice, and thirteen more are known from the works of Azara and other authors. Those collected by myself have been named and described by Mr. Waterhouse at the meetings of the Zoological Society. I must be allowed to take this opportunity of returning my cordial thanks to Mr. Waterhouse, and to the other gentlemen attached to that Society, for their kind and most liberal assistance on all occasions. ↩
In the stomach and duodenum of a capybara which I opened I found a very large quantity of a thin yellowish fluid, in which scarcely a fibre could be distinguished. Mr. Owen informs me that a part of the oesophagus is so constructed that nothing much larger than a crowquill can be passed down. Certainly the broad teeth and strong jaws of this animal are well fitted to grind into pulp the aquatic plants on which it feeds. ↩
At the R. Negro, in Northern Patagonia, there is an animal of the same habits, and probably a closely allied species, but which I never saw. Its noise is different from that of the Maldonado kind; it is repeated only twice instead of three or four times, and is more distinct and sonorous; when heard from a distance it so closely resembles the sound made in cutting down a small tree with an axe, that I have sometimes remained in doubt concerning it. ↩
Philosophical Zoology, tome I page 242. ↩
Magazine of Zoology and Botany, volume I page 217. ↩
Read before the Academy of Sciences in Paris. L’Institut, 1834, page 418. ↩
Geological Transactions volume II page 528. In the Philosophical Transactions (1790, page 294) Dr. Priestly has described some imperfect siliceous tubes and a melted pebble of quartz, found in digging into the ground, under a tree, where a man had been killed by lightning. ↩
Annals de Chimie et de Physique, tome XXXVII page 319. ↩
Azara’s Voyage, volume I page 36. ↩
The corral is an enclosure made of tall and strong stakes. Every estancia, or farming estate, has one attached to it. ↩
The hovels of the Indians are thus called. ↩
Report of the Agricultural Chemistry Association in the Agricultural Gazette, 1845, page 93. ↩
Linnaean Transactions, volume XI page 205. It is remarkable how all the circumstances connected with the salt-lakes in Siberia and Patagonia are similar. Siberia, like Patagonia, appears to have been recently elevated above the waters of the sea. In both countries the salt-lakes occupy shallow depressions in the plains; in both the mud on the borders is black and fetid; beneath the crust of common salt, sulphate of soda or of magnesium occurs, imperfectly crystallized; and in both, the muddy sand is mixed with lentils of gypsum. The Siberian salt-lakes are inhabited by small crustaceous animals; and flamingoes (Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Jan 1830) likewise frequent them. As these circumstances, apparently so trifling, occur in two distant continents, we may feel sure that they are the necessary results of a common cause⁠—See Pallas’s Travels, 1793 to 1794, pages 129⁠–⁠134. ↩
I am bound to express in the strongest terms, my obligation to the government of Buenos Aires for the obliging manner in which passports to all parts of the country were given me, as naturalist of the Beagle. ↩
This prophecy has turned out entirely and miserably wrong. 1845. ↩
Voyage dans l’Amérique méridionale par M. A. d’Orbigny. Partie Histoire tome I page 664. ↩
Since this was written, M. Alcide d’Orbingy has examined these shells, and pronounces them all to be recent. ↩
M. Aug. Bravard has described, in a Spanish work (Observaciones Geologicas, 1857), this district, and he believes that the bones of the extinct mammals were washed out of the underlying Pampean deposit, and subsequently became embedded with the still existing shells; but I am not convinced by his remarks. M. Bravard believes that the whole enormous Pampean deposit is a sub-aerial formation, like sand-dunes: this seems to me to be an untenable doctrine. ↩
Principles of Geology, volume IV page 40. ↩
This theory was first developed in the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle, and subsequently in Professor Owen’s Memoir on Mylodon robustus. ↩
I mean this to exclude the total amount which may have been successively produced and consumed during a given period. ↩
Travels in the Interior of South Africa, volume II page 207 ↩
The elephant which was killed at Exeter Change was estimated (being partly weighed) at five tons and a half. The elephant actress, as I was informed, weighed one ton less; so that we may take five as the average of a full-grown elephant. I was told at the Surry Gardens, that a hippopotamus which was sent to England cut up into pieces was estimated at three tons and a half; we will call it three. From these premises we may give three tons and a half to each of the five rhinoceroses; perhaps a ton to the giraffe, and half to the bos caffer as well as to the elan (a large ox weighs from 1,200 to 1,500 pounds). This will give an average (from the above estimates) of 2.7 of a ton for the ten largest herbivorous animals of Southern Africa. In South America, allowing 1,200 pounds for the two tapirs together, 550 for the guanaco and vicuña, 500 for three deer, 300 for the capybara, peccari, and a monkey, we shall have an average of 250 pounds, which I believe is overstating the result. The ratio will therefore be as 6,048 to 250, or 24 to 1, for the ten largest animals from the two continents. ↩
If we suppose the case of the discovery of a skeleton of a Greenland whale in a fossil state, not a single cetaceous animal being known to exist, what naturalist would have ventured conjecture on the possibility of a carcass so gigantic being supported on the minute crustacea and mollusca living in the frozen seas of the extreme North? ↩
See Zoological Remarks to Capt. Back’s Expedition, by Dr. Richardson. He says, “The subsoil north of latitude 56° is perpetually frozen, the thaw on the coast not penetrating above three feet, and at Bear Lake, in latitude 64°, not more than twenty inches. The frozen substratum does not of itself destroy vegetation, for forests flourish on the surface, at a distance from the coast.” ↩
See Humboldt, Fragments Asiatiques, page 386: Barton’s Geography of Plants: and Malte Brun. In the latter work it is said that the limit of the growth of trees in Siberia may be drawn under the parallel of 70°. ↩
Sturt’s Travels, volume II page 74. ↩
A Gaucho assured me that he had once seen a snow-white or Albino variety, and that it was a most beautiful bird. ↩
Burchell’s Travels, volume I page 280. ↩
Azara, volume IV page 173. ↩
Lichtenstein, however, asserts (Travels, volume II page 25) that the hens begin sitting when they have laid ten or twelve eggs; and that they continue laying, I presume, in another nest. This appears to me very improbable. He asserts that four or five hens associate for incubation with one cock, who sits only at night. ↩
When at the Rio Negro, we heard much of the indefatigable labours of this naturalist. M. Alcide d’Orbigny, during the years 1825 to 1833, traversed several large portions of South America, and has made a collection, and is now publishing the results on a scale of magnificence, which at once places himself in the list of American travellers second only to Humboldt. ↩
Account of the Abipones, AD 1749, volume I (English Translation) page 314 ↩
M. Bibron calls it T. crepitans. ↩
The cavities leading from the fleshy compartments of the extremity, were filled with a yellow pulpy matter, which, examined under a microscope, presented an extraordinary appearance. The mass consisted of rounded, semitransparent, irregular grains, aggregated together into particles of various sizes. All such particles, and the separate grains, possessed the power of rapid movement; generally revolving around different axes, but sometimes progressive. The movement was visible with a very weak power, but even with the highest its cause could not be perceived. It was very different from the circulation of the fluid in the elastic bag, containing the thin extremity of the axis. On other occasions, when dissecting small marine animals beneath the microscope, I have seen particles of pulpy matter, some of large size, as soon as they were disengaged, commence revolving. I have imagined, I know not with how much truth, that this granulo-pulpy matter was in process of being converted into ova. Certainly in this zoophyte such appeared to be the case. ↩
Kerr’s Collection of Voyages, volume VIII page 119. ↩
Purchas’s Collection of Voyages. I believe the date was really 1537. ↩
Azara has even doubted whether the Pampas Indians ever used bows. ↩
I call these thistle-stalks for the want of a more correct name. I believe it is a species of Eryngium. ↩
Travels in Africa, page 233. ↩
Two species of Tinamus and Eudromia elegans of A. d’Orbigny, which can only be called a partridge with regard to its habits. ↩
History of the Abipones, volume II page 6. ↩
Falconer’s Patagonia, page 70. ↩
Fauna Boreali-Americana, volume I page 35. ↩
See Mr. Atwater’s account of the Prairies, in Silliman’s North America Journal, volume I page 117. ↩
Azara’s Voyages, volume I page 373. ↩
M. A. d’Orbigny (volume I page 474) says that the cardoon and artichoke are both found wild. Dr. Hooker (Botanical Magazine, volume IV page 2,862), has described a variety of the Cynara from this part of South America under the name of inermis. He states that botanists are now generally agreed that the cardoon and the artichoke are varieties of one plant. I may add, that an intelligent farmer assured me that he had observed in a deserted garden some artichokes changing into the common cardoon. Dr. Hooker believes that Head’s vivid description of the thistle of the Pampas applies to the cardoon, but this is a mistake. Captain Head referred to the plant, which I have mentioned a few lines lower down, under the title of giant thistle. Whether it is a true thistle I do not know; but it is quite different from the cardoon; and more like a thistle properly so called. ↩
It is said to contain 60,000 inhabitants. Monte Video, the second town of importance on the banks of the Plata, has 15,000. ↩
The bizcacha (Lagostomus trichodactylus) somewhat resembles a large rabbit, but with bigger gnawing teeth and a long tail; it has, however, only three toes behind, like the agouti. During the last three or four years the skins of these animals have been sent to England for the sake of the fur. ↩
Journal of Asiatic Society, volume V page 363. ↩
I need hardly state here that there is good evidence against any horse living in America at the time of Columbus. ↩
Cuvier. Ossemens Fossils, tome I page 158. ↩
This is the geographical division followed by Lichtenstein, Swainson, Erichson, and Richardson. The section from Vera Cruz to Acapulco, given by Humboldt in the Political Essay on Kingdom of Northern Spain will show how immense a barrier the Mexican tableland forms. Dr. Richardson, in his admirable Report on the Zoology of Northern America read before the British Association 1836 (page 157), talking of the identification of a Mexican animal with the Synetheres prehensilis, says, “We do not know with what propriety, but if correct, it is, if not a solitary instance, at least very nearly so, of a rodent animal being common to North and South America.” ↩
See Dr. Richardson’s Report, page 157; also L’Institut, 1837, page 253. Cuvier says the kinkajou is found in the larger Antilles, but this is doubtful. M. Gervais states that the Didelphis crancrivora is found there. It is certain that the West Indies possess some mammifers peculiar to themselves. A tooth of a mastadon has been brought from Bahama; Edinburgh New Philosophical Journ., 1826, page 395. ↩
See the admirable Appendix by Dr. Buckland to Beechey’s Voyage; also the writings of Chamisso in Kotzebue’s Voyage. ↩
In Captain Owen’s Surveying Voyage (volume II page 274) there is a curious account of the effects of a drought on the elephants, at Benguela (west coast of Africa). “A number of these animals had some time since entered the town, in a body, to possess themselves of the wells, not being able to procure any water in the country. The inhabitants mustered, when a desperate conflict ensued, which terminated in the ultimate discomfiture of the invaders, but not until they had killed one man, and wounded several others.” The town is said to have a population of nearly three thousand! Dr. Malcolmson informs me that, during a great drought in India, the wild animals entered the tents of some troops at Ellore, and that a hare drank out of a vessel held by the adjutant of the regiment. ↩
Travels, volume I page 374. ↩
These droughts to a certain degree seem to be almost periodical; I was told the dates of several others, and the intervals were about fifteen years. ↩
Mr. Waterhouse has drawn up a detailed description of this head, which I hope he will publish in some journal. ↩
A nearly similar abnormal, but I do not know whether hereditary, structure has been observed in the carp, and likewise in the crocodile of the Ganges: Histoire des Anomalies, par M. Isid. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, tome I page 244. ↩
M. A. d’Orbigny has given nearly a similar account of these dogs, tome I page 175. ↩
I must express my obligations to Mr. Keane, at whose house I was staying on the Berquelo, and to Mr. Lumb at Buenos Aires, for without their assistance these valuable remains would never have reached England. ↩
Lyell’s Principles of Geology, volume III page 63. ↩
The flies which frequently accompany a ship for some days on its passage from harbour to harbour, wandering from the vessel, are soon lost, and all disappear. ↩
Mr. Blackwall, in his Researches in Zoology, has many excellent observations on the habits of spiders. ↩
An abstract is given in No. IV of the Magazine of Zoology and Botany. ↩
I found here a species of cactus, described by Professor Henslow, under the name of Opuntia Darwinii (Magazine of Zoology and Botany, volume I page 466), which was remarkable for the irritability of the stamens, when I inserted either a piece of stick or the end of my finger in the flower. The segments of the perianth also closed on the pistil, but more slowly than the stamens. Plants of this family, generally considered as tropical, occur in North America (Lewis and Clarke’s Travels, page 221), in the same high latitude as here, namely, in both cases, in 47°. ↩
These insects were not uncommon beneath stones. I found one cannibal scorpion quietly devouring another. ↩
Shelley, Lines on Mt. Blanc. ↩
I have lately heard that Capt. Sulivan, R.N., has found numerous fossil bones, embedded in regular strata, on the banks of the R. Gallegos, in lat. 51° 4′. Some of the bones are large; others are small, and appear to have belonged to an armadillo. This is a most interesting and important discovery. ↩
See the excellent remarks on this subject by Mr. Lyell, in his Principles of Geology. ↩
The desserts of Syria are characterized, according to Volney (tome I page 351), by woody bushes, numerous rats, gazelles and hares. In the landscape of Patagonia, the guanaco replaces the gazelle, and the agouti the hare. ↩
I noticed that several hours before any one of the condors died, all the lice, with which it was infested, crawled to the outside feathers. I was assured that this always happens. ↩
London’s Magazine of Natural History, volume VII ↩
From accounts published since our voyage, and more especially from several interesting letters from Capt. Sulivan, R.N., employed on the survey, it appears that we took an exaggerated view of the badness of the climate on these islands. But when I reflect on the almost universal covering of peat, and on the fact of wheat seldom ripening here, I can hardly believe that the climate in summer is so fine and dry as it has lately been represented. ↩
Lesson’s Zoology of the Voyage of the Coquille, tome I page 168. All the early voyagers, and especially Bougainville, distinctly state that the wolf-like fox was the only native animal on the island. The distinction of the rabbit as a species, is taken from peculiarities in the fur, from the shape of the head, and from the shortness of the ears. I may here observe that the difference between the Irish and English hare rests upon nearly similar characters, only more strongly marked. ↩
I have reason, however, to suspect that there is a field-mouse. The common European rat and mouse have roamed far from the habitations of the settlers. The common hog has also run wild on one islet; all are of a black colour: the boars are very fierce, and have great trunks. ↩
The culpeu is the Canis Magellanicus brought home by Captain King from the Strait of Magellan. It is common in Chile. ↩
Pernety, Voyage aux Isles Malouines, page 526. ↩
“Nous n’avons pas ete moins saisis d’etonnement à la vue de l’innombrable quantite de pierres de touts grandeurs, bouleversees les unes sur les autres, et cependent rangees, comme si elles avoient ete amoncelees negligemment pour remplir des ravins. On ne se lassoit pas d’admirer les effets prodigieux de la nature.” —Pernety, page 526 ↩
An inhabitant of Mendoza, and hence well capable of judging, assured me that, during the several years he had resided on these islands, he had never felt the slightest shock of an earthquake. ↩
I was surprised to find, on counting the eggs of a large white Doris (this sea-slug was three and a half inches long), how extraordinarily numerous they were. From two to five eggs (each three-thousandths of an inch in diameter) were contained in a spherical little case. These were arranged two deep in transverse rows forming a ribbon. The ribbon adhered by its edge to the rock in an oval spire. One which I found, measured nearly twenty inches in length and half in breadth. By counting how many balls were contained in a tenth of an inch in the row, and how many rows in an equal length of the ribbon, on the most moderate computation there were six hundred thousand eggs. Yet this Doris was certainly not very common; although I was often searching under the stones, I saw only seven individuals. No fallacy is more common with naturalists, than that the numbers of an individual species depend on its powers of propagation. ↩
This substance, when dry, is tolerably compact, and of little specific gravity: Professor Ehrenberg has examined it: he states (König Akademie der Wissen: Berlin, Feb. 1845) that it is composed of infusoria, including fourteen polygastrica, and four phytolitharia. He says that they are all inhabitants of freshwater; this is a beautiful example of the results obtainable through Professor Ehrenberg’s microscopic researches; for Jemmy Button told me that it is always collected at the bottoms of mountain-brooks. It is, moreover, a striking fact that in the geographical distribution of the infusoria, which are well known to have very wide ranges, that all the species in this substance, although brought from the extreme southern point of Tierra del Fuego, are old, known forms. ↩
One day, off the East coast of Tierra del Fuego, we saw a grand sight in several spermaceti whales jumping upright quite out of the water, with the exception of their tail-fins. As they fell down sideways, they splashed the water high up, and the sound reverberated like a distant broadside. ↩
Captain Sulivan, who, since his voyage in the Beagle, has been employed on the survey of the Falkland Islands, heard from a sealer in (1842?), that when in the western part of the Strait of Magellan, he was astonished by a native woman coming on board, who could talk some English. Without doubt this was Fuega Basket. She lived (I fear the term probably bears a double interpretation) some days on board. ↩
The southwesterly breezes are generally very dry. January 29th, being at anchor under Cape Gregory: a very hard gale from W. by S., clear sky with few cumuli; temperature 57°, dew-point 36°⁠—difference 21°. On January 15th, at Port St. Julian: in the morning, light winds with much rain, followed by a very heavy squall with rain⁠—settled into heavy gale with large cumuli⁠—cleared up, blowing very strong from S. S. W. Temperature 60°, dew-point 42°⁠—difference 18°. ↩
Rengger, Naturgeschichte der Saeugethiere von Paraguay. S. 334. ↩
Captain Fitz Roy informs me that in April (our October), the leaves of those trees which grow near the base of the mountains change colour, but not those on the more elevated parts. I remember having read some observations, showing that in England the leaves fall earlier in a warm and fine autumn than in a late and cold one, The change in the colour being here retarded in the more elevated, and therefore colder situations, must be owing to the same general law of vegetation. The trees of Tierra del Fuego during no part of the year entirely shed their leaves. ↩
Described from my specimens and notes by the Rev. J. M. Berkeley, in the Linnean Transactions (volume XIX page 37), under the name of Cyttaria Darwinii; the Chilean species is the C. Berteroii. This genus is allied to Bulgaria. ↩
I believe I must except one alpine Haltica, and a single specimen of a Melasoma. Mr. Waterhouse informs me, that of the Harpalidae there are eight or nine species⁠—the forms of the greater number being very peculiar; of Heteromera, four or five species; of Rhyncophora, six or seven; and of the following families one species in each: Staphylinidae, Elateridae, Cebrionidae, Melolonthidae. The species in the other orders are even fewer. In all the orders, the scarcity of the individuals is even more remarkable than that of the species. Most of the Coleoptera have been carefully described by Mr. Waterhouse in the Annals of Natural History. ↩
Its geographical range is remarkably wide; it is found from the extreme southern islets near Cape Horn, as far north on the eastern coast (according to information given me by Mr. Stokes) as lat. 43°⁠—but on the western coast, as Dr. Hooker tells me, it extends to the R. San Francisco in California, and perhaps even to Kamtschatka. We thus have an immense range in latitude; and as Cook, who must have been well acquainted with the species, found it at Kerguelen Land, no less than 140° in longitude. ↩
Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, volume I page 363.⁠—It appears that seaweed grows extremely quick.⁠—Mr. Stephenson found (Wilson’s Voyage Round Scotland, volume II page 228) that a rock uncovered only at spring-tides, which had been chiselled smooth in November, on the following May, that is, within six months afterwards, was thickly covered with Fucus digitatus two feet, and F. esculentus six feet, in length. ↩
With regard to Tierra del Fuego, the results are deduced from the observations of Capt. King (Geographical Journal, 1830), and those taken on board the Beagle. For the Falkland Islands, I am indebted to Capt. Sulivan for the mean of the mean temperature (reduced from careful observations at midnight, 8 a.m., noon, and 8 p.m.) of the three hottest months, viz., December, January, and February. The temperature of Dublin is taken from Barton. ↩
Agueros, Descripción Historial de la Provincia de Chiloe, 1791, page 94. ↩
See the German Translation of this journal; and for the other facts, Mr. Brown’s Appendix to Flinders’s Voyage. ↩
On the Cordillera of central Chile, I believe the snow-line varies exceedingly in height in different summers. I was assured that during one very dry and long summer, all the snow disappeared from Aconcagua, although it attains the prodigious height of 23,000 feet. It is probable that much of the snow at these great heights is evaporated rather than thawed. ↩
Miers’s Chile, volume I page 415. It is said that the sugarcane grew at Ingenio, lat. 32° to 33°, but not in sufficient quantity to make the manufacture profitable. In the valley of Quillota, south of Ingenio, I saw some large date palm trees. ↩
Bulkeley’s and Cummin’s Faithful Narrative of the Loss of the Wager. The earthquake happened August 25, 1741. ↩
Agueros, Descripción Historial de Chiloe, page 227. ↩
Geological Transactions, volume VI page 415. ↩
I have given details (the first, I believe, published) on this subject in the first edition, and in the Appendix to it. I have there shown that the apparent exceptions to the absence of erratic boulders in certain countries, are due to erroneous observations; several statements there given I have since found confirmed by various authors. ↩
Geographical Journal, 1830, pages 65, 66. ↩
Richardson’s Appendix to Back’s Expedition, and Humboldt’s Fragments Asiatique, tome II page 386. ↩
Messrs. Dease and Simpson, in Geographical Journal, volume VIII pages 218 and 220. ↩
Cuvier (Ossemens Fossiles, tome I page 151), from Billing’s Voyage. ↩
In the former edition and Appendix, I have given some facts on the transportal of erratic boulders and icebergs in the Atlantic Ocean. This subject has lately been treated excellently by Mr. Hayes, in the Boston Journal (volume IV page 426). The author does not appear aware of a case published by me (Geographical Journal, volume IX page 528) of a gigantic boulder embedded in an iceberg in the Antarctic Ocean, almost certainly one hundred miles distant from any land, and perhaps much more distant. In the Appendix I have discussed at length the probability (at that time hardly thought of) of icebergs, when stranded, grooving and polishing rocks, like glaciers. This is now a very commonly received opinion; and I cannot still avoid the suspicion that it is applicable even to such cases as that of the Jura. Dr. Richardson has assured me that the icebergs off North America push before them pebbles and sand, and leave the submarine rocky flats quite bare; it is hardly possible to doubt that such ledges must be polished and scored in the direction of the set of the prevailing currents. Since writing that Appendix, I have seen in North Wales (London Philosophical Magazine, volume XXI page 180) the adjoining action of glaciers and floating icebergs. ↩
Caldeleugh, in Philosophical Transactions for 1836. ↩
Annales des Sciences Naturelles, March, 1833. M. Gay, a zealous and able naturalist, was then occupied in studying every branch of natural history throughout the kingdom of Chile. ↩
Burchess’s Travels, volume II page 45. ↩
It is a remarkable fact, that Molina, though describing in detail all the birds and animals of Chile, never once mentions this genus, the species of which are so common, and so remarkable in their habits. Was he at a loss how to classify them, and did he consequently think that silence was the more prudent course? It is one more instance of the frequency of omissions by authors, on those very subjects where it might have been least expected. ↩
Horticultural Transactions, volume V page 249. Mr. Caldeleugh sent home two tubers, which, being well manured, even the first season produced numerous potatoes and an abundance of leaves. See Humboldt’s interesting discussion on this plant, which it appears was unknown in Mexico⁠—in Political Essay on New Spain, book IV chap. IX ↩
By sweeping with my insect-net, I procured from these situations a considerable number of minute insects, of the family of Staphylinidae, and others allied to Pselaphus, and minute Hymenoptera. But the most characteristic family in number, both of individuals and species, throughout the more open parts of Chiloe and Chonos is that of Telephoridae. ↩
It is said that some rapacious birds bring their prey alive to their nests. If so, in the course of centuries, every now and then, one might escape from the young birds. Some such agency is necessary, to account for the distribution of the smaller gnawing animals on islands not very near each other. ↩
I may mention, as a proof of how great a difference there is between the seasons of the wooded and the open parts of this coast, that on September 20th, in lat. 34°, these birds had young ones in the nest, while among the Chonos Islands, three months later in the summer, they were only laying, the difference in latitude between these two places being about 700 miles. ↩
M. Arago in L’Institut, 1839, page 337. See also Miers’s Chile, volume I page 392; also Lyell’s Principles of Geology, chap. XV, book II ↩
For a full account of the volcanic phenomena which accompanied the earthquake of the 20th, and for the conclusions deducible from them, I must refer to Volume V of the Geological Transactions. ↩
Scoresby’s Arctic Regions, volume I page 122. ↩
I have heard it remarked in Shropshire that the water, when the Severn is flooded from long-continued rain, is much more turbid than when it proceeds from the snow melting in the Welsh mountains. D’Orbigny (tome I page 184), in explaining the cause of the various colours of the rivers in South America, remarks that those with blue or clear water have there source in the Cordillera, where the snow melts. ↩
Dr. Gillies in Journal of Natural and Geographical Science, Aug., 1830. This author gives the heights of the Passes. ↩
This structure in frozen snow was long since observed by Scoresby in the icebergs near Spitzbergen, and, lately, with more care, by Colonel Jackson (Journal of Geographical Society, volume V page 12) on the Neva. Mr. Lyell (Principles, volume IV page 360) has compared the fissures by which the columnar structure seems to be determined, to the joints that traverse nearly all rocks, but which are best seen in the non-stratified masses. I may observe, that in the case of the frozen snow, the columnar structure must be owing to a “metamorphic” action, and not to a process during deposition. ↩
This is merely an illustration of the admirable laws, first laid down by Mr. Lyell, on the geographical distribution of animals, as influenced by geological changes. The whole reasoning, of course, is founded on the assumption of the immutability of species; otherwise the difference in the species in the two regions might be considered as superinduced during a length of time. ↩
Volume IV page 11, and volume II page 217. For the remarks on Guayaquil, see Silliman’s Journal, volume XXIV page 384. For those on Tacna by Mr. Hamilton, see Transactions of British Association, 1840. For those on Coseguina see Mr. Caldcleugh in Philosophical Transactions, 1835. In the former edition I collected several references on the coincidences between sudden falls in the barometer and earthquakes; and between earthquakes and meteors. ↩
Observa. sobre el Clima de Lima, page 67.⁠—Azara’s Travels, volume I page 381.⁠—Ulloa’s Voyage, volume II page 28.⁠—Burchell’s Travels, volume II page 524.⁠—Webster’s Description of the Azores, page 124.⁠—Voyage a l’Isle de France par un Officer du Roi, tome I page 248.⁠—Description of St. Helena, page 123. ↩
Temple, in his travels through Upper Peru, or Bolivia, in going from Potosi to Oruro, says, “I saw many Indian villages or dwellings in ruins, up even to the very tops of the mountains, attesting a former population where now all is desolate.” He makes similar remarks in another place; but I cannot tell whether this desolation has been caused by a want of population, or by an altered condition of the land. ↩
Edinburgh, Philosophical Journ., Jan., 1830, page 74; and April, 1830, page 258⁠—also Daubeny on Volcanoes, page 438; and Bengal Journ., volume VII page 324. ↩
Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, volume IV page 199. ↩
A similar interesting case is recorded in the Madras Medical Quart. Journal, 1839, page 340. Dr. Ferguson, in his admirable Paper (see 9th volume of Edinburgh Royal Transactions), shows clearly that the poison is generated in the drying process; and hence that dry hot countries are often the most unhealthy. ↩
The progress of research has shown that some of these birds, which were then thought to be confined to the islands, occur on the American continent. The eminent ornithologist, Mr. Sclater, informs me that this is the case with the Strix punctatissima and Pyrocephalus nanus; and probably with the Otus Galapagoensis and Zenaida Galapagoensis: so that the number of endemic birds is reduced to twenty-three, or probably to twenty-one. Mr. Sclater thinks that one or two of these endemic forms should be ranked rather as varieties than species, which always seemed to me probable. ↩
This is stated by Dr. Gunther (Zoology Soc. Jan 24th, 1859) to be a peculiar species, not known to inhabit any other country. ↩
Voyage aux Quatre Iles d’Afrique. With respect to the Sandwich Islands, see Tyerman and Bennett’s Journal, volume I page 434. For Mauritius, see Voyage par un Officier, etc., part I page 170. There are no frogs in the Canary Islands (Webb et Berthelot, Histoire Naturelle des Iles Canaries). I saw none at St. Jago in the Cape de Verds. There are none at St. Helena. ↩
Annals and Magazine of Natural History, volume XVI page 19. ↩
Voyage in the U.S. Ship Essex, volume I page 215. ↩
Linn. Transactions, volume XII page 496. The most anomalous fact on this subject which I have met with is the wildness of the small birds in the Arctic parts of North America (as described by Richardson, Fauna Bor., volume II page 332), where they are said never to be persecuted. This case is the more strange, because it is asserted that some of the same species in their winter-quarters in the United States are tame. There is much, as Dr. Richardson well remarks, utterly inexplicable connected with the different degrees of shyness and care with which birds conceal their nests. How strange it is that the English wood-pigeon, generally so wild a bird, should very frequently rear its young in shrubberies close to houses! ↩
It is remarkable how the same disease is modified in different climates. At the little island of St. Helena the introduction of scarlet fever is dreaded as a plague. In some countries, foreigners and natives are as differently affected by certain contagious disorders as if they had been different animals; of which fact some instances have occurred in Chile; and, according to Humboldt, in Mexico (Political Essay, New Spain, volume IV). ↩
Narrative of Missionary Enterprise, page 282. ↩
Captain Beechey (chap. IV, volume I) states that the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island are firmly convinced that after the arrival of every ship they suffer cutaneous and other disorders. Captain Beechey attributes this to the change of diet during the time of the visit. Dr. Macculloch (Western Isles, volume II page 32) says: “It is asserted, that on the arrival of a stranger (at St. Kilda) all the inhabitants, in the common phraseology, catch a cold.” Dr. Macculloch considers the whole case, although often previously affirmed, as ludicrous. He adds, however, that “the question was put by us to the inhabitants who unanimously agreed in the story.” In Vancouver’s Voyage, there is a somewhat similar statement with respect to Otaheite. Dr. Dieffenbach, in a note to his translation of the Journal, states that the same fact is universally believed by the inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, and in parts of New Zealand. It is impossible that such a belief should have become universal in the northern hemisphere, at the Antipodes, and in the Pacific, without some good foundation. Humboldt (Political Essay on Kingdom of New Spain, volume IV) says, that the great epidemics of Panama and Callao are “marked” by the arrival of ships from Chile, because the people from that temperate region, first experience the fatal effects of the torrid zones. I may add, that I have heard it stated in Shropshire, that sheep, which have been imported from vessels, although themselves in a healthy condition, if placed in the same fold with others, frequently produce sickness in the flock. ↩
Travels in Australia, volume I page 154. I must express my obligation to Sir T. Mitchell, for several interesting personal communications on the subject of these great valleys of New South Wales. ↩
I was interested by finding here the hollow conical pitfall of the lion-ant, or some other insect; first a fly fell down the treacherous slope and immediately disappeared; then came a large but unwary ant; its struggles to escape being very violent, those curious little jets of sand, described by Kirby and Spence (Entomol., volume I page 425) as being flirted by the insect’s tail, were promptly directed against the expected victim. But the ant enjoyed a better fate than the fly, and escaped the fatal jaws which lay concealed at the base of the conical hollow. This Australian pitfall was only about half the size of that made by the European lion-ant. ↩
Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, page 354. ↩
These plants are described in the Annals of Natural Hist., volume I, 1838, page 337. ↩
Holman’s Travels, volume IV page 378. ↩
Kotzebue’s First Voyage, volume III page 155. ↩
The thirteen species belong to the following orders:⁠—In the Coleoptera, a minute Elater; Orthoptera, a Gryllus and a Blatta; Hemiptera, one species; Homoptera, two; Neuroptera a Chrysopa; Hymenoptera, two ants; Lepidoptera nocturna, a Diopaea, and a Pterophorus (?); Diptera, two species. ↩
Kotzebue’s First Voyage, volume III page 222. ↩
The large claws or pincers of some of these crabs are most beautifully adapted, when drawn back, to form an operculum to the shell, nearly as perfect as the proper one originally belonging to the molluscous animal. I was assured, and as far as my observations went I found it so, that certain species of the hermit-crab always use certain species of shells. ↩
Some natives carried by Kotzebue to Kamtschatka collected stones to take back to their country. ↩
See Proceedings of Zoological Society, 1832, page 17. ↩
Tyerman and Bennett. Voyage etc., volume II page 33. ↩
I exclude, of course, some soil which has been imported here in vessels from Malacca and Java, and likewise, some small fragments of pumice, drifted here by the waves. The one block of greenstone, moreover, on the northern island must be excepted. ↩
These were first read before the Geological Society in May, 1837, and have since been developed in a separate volume on the Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. ↩
It is remarkable that Mr. Lyell, even in the first edition of his Principles of Geology, inferred that the amount of subsidence in the Pacific must have exceeded that of elevation, from the area of land being very small relatively to the agents there tending to form it, namely, the growth of coral and volcanic action. ↩
It has been highly satisfactory to me to find the following passage in a pamphlet by Mr. Couthouy, one of the naturalists in the great Antarctic Expedition of the United States:⁠—“Having personally examined a large number of coral-islands and resided eight months among the volcanic class having shore and partially encircling reefs. I may be permitted to state that my own observations have impressed a conviction of the correctness of the theory of Mr. Darwin.”⁠—The naturalists, however, of this expedition differ with me on some points respecting coral formations. ↩
After the volumes of eloquence which have poured forth on this subject, it is dangerous even to mention the tomb. A modern traveller, in twelve lines, burdens the poor little island with the following titles⁠—it is a grave, tomb, pyramid, cemetery, sepulchre, catacomb, sarcophagus, minaret, and mausoleum! ↩
It deserves notice, that all the many specimens of this shell found by me in one spot, differ as a marked variety, from another set of specimens procured from a different spot. ↩
Beatson’s St. Helena. Introductory chapter, page 4. ↩
Among these few insects, I was surprised to find a small Aphodius (nov. spec.) and an Oryctes, both extremely numerous under dung. When the island was discovered it certainly possessed no quadruped, excepting perhaps a mouse: it becomes, therefore, a difficult point to ascertain, whether these stercovorous insects have since been imported by accident, or if aborigines, on what food they formerly subsisted. On the banks of the Plata, where, from the vast number of cattle and horses, the fine plains of turf are richly manured, it is vain to seek the many kinds of dung-feeding beetles, which occur so abundantly in Europe. I observed only an Oryctes (the insects of this genus in Europe generally feed on decayed vegetable matter) and two species of Phanaeus, common in such situations. On the opposite side of the Cordillera in Chiloe, another species of Phanaeus is exceedingly abundant, and it buries the dung of the cattle in large earthen balls beneath the ground. There is reason to believe that the genus Phanaeus, before the introduction of cattle, acted as scavengers to man. In Europe, beetles, which find support in the matter which has already contributed towards the life of other and larger animals, are so numerous that there must be considerably more than one hundred different species. Considering this, and observing what a quantity of food of this kind is lost on the plains of La Plata, I imagined I saw an instance where man had disturbed that chain, by which so many animals are linked together in their native country. In Van Diemen’s Land, however, I found four species of Onthophagus, two of Aphodius, and one of a third genus, very abundantly under the dung of cows; yet these latter animals had been then introduced only thirty-three years. Previous to that time the kangaroo and some other small animals were the only quadrupeds; and their dung is of a very different quality from that of their successors introduced by man. In England the greater number of stercovorous beetles are confined in their appetites; that is, they do not depend indifferently on any quadruped for the means of subsistence. The change, therefore, in habits which must have taken place in Van Diemen’s Land is highly remarkable. I am indebted to the Rev. F. W. Hope, who, I hope, will permit me to call him my master in Entomology, for giving me the names of the foregoing insects. ↩
Monats. der König. Akademie der Wissen zu Berlin. Vom April, 1845. ↩
I have described this bar in detail, in the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, volume XIX (1841), page 257. ↩