236 



TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



[chap. xr. 



lar, bright-yellow fungus, which grows in vast numbers on the 

 beech-trees. When young it is elastic and turgid, with a smooth 

 surface ; but when mature, it shrinks, becomes tougher, and has its 

 entire surface deeply pitted or honey- 

 combed, as represented in the accom- 

 panying wood-cut. This fungus be- 

 longs to a new and curious genus ;* I 

 found a second species on another spe- 

 cies of beech in Chile ; and Dr. Hooker 

 informs me, that just lately a third 

 species has been discovered on a third 

 species of beech in Van Diemen's 

 Land. How singular is this relation- 

 ship between parasitical fungi and the trees on which they grow, 

 in distant parts of the world ! In Tierra del Fuego the fungus 

 in its tough and mature state is collected in large quantities by 

 the women and children, and is eaten uncooked. It has a muci- 

 laginous, slightly sweet taste, with a faint smell like that of a 

 mushroom. With the exception of a few berries, chiefly of a 

 dwarf arbutus, the natives eat no vegetable food besides this fun- 

 gus. In New Zealand, before the introduction of the potato, 

 the roots of the fern were largely consumed ; at the present time, 

 I believe, Tierra del Fuego is the only country in the world 

 where a cryptogamic plant affords a staple article of food. 



The zoology of Tierra del Fuego, as might have been expected 

 from the nature of its climate and vegetation, is very poor. Of 

 mammalia, besides whales and seals, there is one bat, a kind of 

 mouse (Reithrodon chinchilloides), two true mice, a ctenomys 

 allied to or identical with the tucutuco, two foxes (Canis Magel- 

 lanicus and C. Azarse), a sea-otter, the guanaco, and a deer. 

 Most of these animals inhabit only the drier eastern parts of the 

 country ; and the deer has never been seen south of the Strait of 

 Magellan. Observing the general correspondence of the cliffs 

 of soft sandstone, mud, and shingle, on the opposite sides of the 

 Strait, and on some intervening islands, one is strongly tempted 



* Described from my specimens, and notes by the Rev. J. M. Berkeley, in 

 tbe Linnean Transactions (vol. xix. p. 37), under the name of Cyttaria 

 Darwinii : the Chilian species is the C. Berteroii. This genus is allied to 

 Bulgaria. 



