PLANTS OF THE STKAIT OF MAGELLAN. 195 



At Fortune Bay, as in many other localities, I got beautiful flower- 

 ing specimens oi LehetmitJius americanus. Apparently this elegant 

 and delightfully fragrant plant flowers early in the season ; for last 

 year I did not meet with it in flower though it is so common. 

 Our next anchorage was the Otter Islands, where we spent a 

 couple of days, and I found Veronica elliptica in flower, for the 

 first time. From the muddy bottom of the harbour I obtained 

 some fine specimens of a bivalve mollusk of the genus Leda by 

 means of the dredge ; and the kelp yielded me a few MoUusca and 

 Crustacea that I had not got before. We readied Sholl Bay 

 on the evening of the 2l8t, and took advantage of the following 

 day, which was a fine one, to cross the strait to the Fuegian aide. 

 As we approached the southern shore of the strait we all agreed 

 that it well merited Narborough's name of Island of Desolation ; 

 tor it was by far the wildest and dreariest-looking piece of country 

 we had yet seen — a barrier of bare grey crags and jagged moun- 

 tain-tops rising sheer out of the water. We had a fine view of 

 Cape Pillar ; and after scrutinizing Tuesday Bay, the Harbour of 

 Mercy, and Skyring Harbour, we anchored in Tuesday Bay, and 

 remained for three days, spending our Christmas there. I found 

 the vegetation exactly the same as that of the southern Channels — 

 Winter's Bark, Liboced^^us, Desfontainea^Berberisilicifolia^ Fagus 

 oetuloides, Fernettya mucronata, and great bushes of Veronica de- 

 cussata in flower. JEscallonia serrata was plentiful and in full 

 flower, the plants looking in the distance as if sprinkled with 

 snow. You will, I think, be interested to hear that Metrosideros 

 stipularis was common here and in several other places that I vi- 

 sited on the southern shore of the Strait, so that it has a much 

 wider range than was at one time supposed. It occurs throughout 

 the entire tract of the Channels and in the Strait as far east as 

 Play a Parda at all events. In Tuesday Bay I found the pretty 

 little Ourisia hreviflora for the first time ; but my specimens are 

 not nearly so finely coloured as those in the 'Flora Antarctica.' 

 On leaving Tuesday Bay we visited a considerable number of 

 places, both on the Patagonian and Fuegian sides of the Strait ; 

 and I got a few additions to my collection, though nothing of 

 inuch importance. I found Lagenophora Commersonii for the first 

 time in flower in a new harbour we found in Fuegia, and in an- 

 other Fuegian harbour excellent specimens of Accena ptwiila. We 

 spent the forenoon of the 6th of January at Port Famine, and I 

 collected specimens of a number of plants, though, a? I have 



