45 
farm-houses, you meet with patches of Agrostis linearis, a 
sweet grass, always cropped close to the ground; but no 
where with a grassy turf of any extent. This is a remarkable 
circumstance in a country so much favoured in point of climate ; 
and where the variety of indigenous grasses is as great as in 
any other portion of the world of equal extent. Several 
causes, it is probable, contribute to produce this uncommon 
sterility. The high winds, so prevalent for the greater part of 
the year, but more especially about the period when the grasses 
are in flower, either damage the whole plant, prevent the fecun- 
dation of the germ, or shake out the grain before it arrives at 
maturity. At this season, likewise, the periodical rains cease; 
and such of the seeds as had escaped the effects of the wind, 
fall on a parched soil, where they must remain in a torpid 
state until the next rainy season sets in, after a lapse of six 
or seven months. They lie, in the meantime, exposed to the 
depredations of an infinite variety of birds and insects, parti- 
cularly of the ants and termites, with which the surface of the 
ground is absolutely animated. These destructive insects 
retain their activity throughout the year, and are constantly 
in motion, day and night; nothing therefore in the shape of 
food escapes them. They never attack any part of a living 
plant; but seeds of all sorts are devoured by them on the 
spot, or carried off to their magazines. 
* [t is owing, perhaps, to this interruption in their natural 
progress to maturity and decay, that these grasses almost 
invariably throw out branches from the joints, after the main 
stalk has failed. These branches succeed each other after 
each successive miscarriage, and it is not uncommon even to 
find secondary branches issuing from the joints of the primary 
ones. Thus their existence appears to be protracted beyond 
the natural period, in efforts to fulfil the end of their creation. 
Notwithstanding these efforts, however, the greater part of 
them must have ceased long ago to exist, were it not that 
they possess the faculty of propagating themselves by the 
root; which they accomplish either by pushing out long 
creeping shoots, sometimes over, at others underneath the 
surface of the soil; or by forming a regular succession of 
