18091842] VOYAGE 9 



small show hundreds of species make. The box contains Letter 3 

 a good many geological specimens ; I am well aware that 

 the greater number are too small. But I maintain that no 

 person has a right to accuse me, till he has tried carrying 

 rocks under a tropical sun. I have endeavoured to get 

 specimens of every variety of rock, and have written notes 

 upon all. If you think it worth your while to examine 

 any of them I shall be very glad of some mineralogical 

 information, especially on any numbers between I and 254 

 which include Santiago rocks. By my catalogue I shall 

 know which you may refer to. As for my plants, " pudet 

 pigetque mihi." All I can say is that when objects are 

 present which I can observe and particularise about, I cannot 

 summon resolution to collect when I know nothing. 



It is positively distressing to walk in the glorious forest 

 amidst such treasures and feel they are all thrown away upon 

 one. My collection from the Abrolhos is interesting, as I 

 suspect it nearly contains the whole flowering vegetation- 

 and indeed from extreme sterility the same may almost be 

 said of Santiago. I have sent home four bottles with animals 

 in spirits, 1 have three more, but would not send them till 

 I had a fourth. I shall be anxious to hear how they fare. 

 I made an enormous collection of Arachnidse at Rio, also 

 a good many small beetles in pill boxes, but it is not the 

 best time of year for the latter. Amongst the lower animals 

 nothing has so much interested me as finding two species 

 of elegantly coloured true Planaria inhabiting the dewy 

 forest ! The false relation they bear to snails is the most 

 extraordinary thing of the kind I have ever seen. In the 

 same genus (or more truly family) some of the marine 

 species possess an organisation so marvellous that I can 

 scarcely credit my eyesight. Every one has heard of the 

 discoloured streaks of water in the equatorial regions. 

 One I examined was owing to the presence of such minute 

 Oscillarice that in each square inch of surface there must 

 have been at least one hundred thousand present. After 

 this I had better be silent, for you will think me a Baron 

 Munchausen amongst naturalists. Most assuredly I might 

 collect a far greater number of specimens of Invertebrate 

 animals if I took less time over each ; but I have come to 

 the conclusion that two animals with their original colour 



