OF THE ANTARCTIC VOYAGE. 297 
horses, just trotting off as they scent the coming stranger 
from afar. To cultivate the Tussack Grass, 1 should recom- 
mend that its seed be sown in patches, just below the surface 
of the earth, and at distances of about 2 feet apart; it must 
afterwards be weeded out, for it grows very luxuriantly, fre- 
quently attaining a height of 6 or 7 feet. It should not be 
grazed, but cut and reaped in bundles. If cut, it quickly 
shoots up again, but is much injured by grazing; for all 
animals, especially pigs, tear it up to get at the sweet nutty- _ 
flavoured roots. I have not tried how it would be relished 
if made into hay, but cattle will eat the dry thatch off the 
roof of a house in winter; their preference to Tussack Grass 
being so great that they scent it a considerable distance, and 
use every effort to get at it. Some bundles, which had been 
stacked in the yard at the back of Government House, were 
quickly detected, and the cattle from the village made, every 
night, repeated attempts to reach them, which occasioned 
great trouble to the sentry upon duty.” 
The same Report contains also Dr. Hooker’s description 
of the Tussack, which I here transcribe, and to which I have 
likewise added a figure and analysis, also sent home by the 
same Botanist. Dr. Hooker speaks of it under the name of 
Festuca flabellata, and it is certainly the plant so called by 
Lamarck, (who described it from Commerson’s specimens, 
gathered by the latter Voyager in the Straits of Magelhaens,) 
and of the French Naturalists; but he correctly refers it to 
the genus Dactylis, and suggests that it may probably be the 
Dactylis cespitosa of Forster. A comparison with the ori- 
ginal plants, though very indifferent specimens, deposited by 
Forster in the Banksian Herbarium, prove that Dr. Hooker 
is quite right in this idea. Forster found the plant growing 
on New Year’s Island, near Staten Land, and says of it that 
the Magelhaenic Shag, (Pelicanus Magelhaenicus,) commonly 
builds its nest upon the top of the great tufted bases of this 
plant, which are often two feet high. : iL. 
