100 EAIIIA BLANCA. [chap. v. 



allowed to ask, wliat is an individual ? It is always interesting to 

 discover the foundation of the strange tales of the old voyagers ; 

 and I have no doubt but that the habits of tliis Virgularia explain 

 one such case. Captain Lancaster, in his voyage* in 1601, nar- 

 rates that on the sea-sands of the Island of Sombrero, in the 

 East Indies, he " found a small twig growing up like a young 

 tree, and on offering to pluck it up it shrinks down to the ground, 

 and sinks, unless held very hard. On being plucked up, a great 

 worm is found to be its root, and as the tree groweth in great- 

 ness, so doth the worm diminish ; and as soon as the worm is 

 entirely turned into a tree it rooteth in the earth, and so becomes 

 great. This transformation is one of the strangest wonders 

 that I saw in all my travels ; for if this tree is plucked up, while 

 young, and the leaves and bark stripped off, it becomes a hard 

 stone when dry, much like white coral : thus is this worm twice 

 transformed into different natures. Of these we gathered and 

 brouglit home many." 



During my stay at Baliia Blanca, while waiting for the Beagle, 

 the place was in a constant state of excitement, from rumours of 

 wars and victories, between the troops of Rosas and the wild 

 Indians. One day an account came that a small party forming 

 one of the postas on the line to Buenos Aj'^res, had been found 

 all murdered. The next day three hundred men arrived from 

 the Colorado, under the command of Commandant Miranda. A 

 large portion of these men were Indians {inansos, or tame), 

 belonging to the tribe of the Cacique Bernantio. They passed 



were filled ■with a yellow pulpy matter, which, examined under a micro- 

 Bcope, presented an extraordinary appearance. 'J'he mass consisted of 

 rounded, semi-transparent, irregular grains, aggregated together into par- 

 ticles 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, hut 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 mat- 

 ter, some of large size, as soon as they were disengaged, commence revolv- 

 ing. 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, vol. viii. p. 119. 



