Miscellaneous. 141 



valley like lava : perhaps a very sudden and violent flood might pro- 

 duce the effect, though from the appearance of the fragments it can- 

 not have been produced by long- continued fluviatile action. 



The aspect of the Falkland Islands during an equinoctial gale and 

 snow is anything but prepossessing : the hills are low and peat is uni- 

 versal. A few stunted shrubs and withered grasses cover the moor, 

 and that is all. If you can imagine the Shetlands or Hebrides in the 

 end of February or beginning of March, substitute Myrtus num- 

 mularia and one or two other Antarctic shrubs for our Erica and 

 Calluna, you have a very good idea of the Falklands. In summer 

 doubtless very interesting plants may be had, but you will get as 

 many specimens on the Brae of Badenoch at Christmas as in the 

 Falklands while we were there. 



Valparaiso, 3rd December 1845. 



We arrived here on the 16th ult., and I immediately started for 

 the interior. I could only get a week's leave, but in that time bota- 

 nized a good part of the hill skirting the Cordillera de San Carlos 

 and part of the latter itself, but the hills of much elevation are ex- 

 tremely barren. 



Since I came back I have been gathering plants and shells ; the 

 littoral shells are — Chitons, of course in profusion ; Patella, Fissurella, 

 Trochus, Monoceros, Turbo (true, large, round), Marginella. 



H.M. Ship Herald, Paita, Peru, 28th December 1845. 



First wishing you most sincerely a merry Christmas and a happy 

 new year, I shall, though much hurried, give you a brief sketch of my 

 proceedings in marine zoology since we left Valparaiso, from which 

 place I wrote you fully. 



We put in for a couple of days into a small bay named Papudo, 

 about thirty miles N. of Valparaiso ; here I made some very inter- 

 esting additions to my collection of plants, some of which will I be- 

 lieve turn out to be new. 



I dredged all over this bay ; the greater part of the bottom is 

 sandy, the sand is loose and micaceous, and as the bay is very open 

 there are few or no animals in it. A very few minute univalves and 

 numerous small Crustacea — numerous in individuals I mean, but all 

 one species, — were all that a very careful search afforded. In a few 

 places where the bottom was gravelly the shells were more numerous, 

 but the same species as I have described from Valparaiso : Turritellce 

 equally common from four to fifteen fathoms ; but there is no such 

 distinction between the banks of living and dead shells which struck 

 me as being so remarkable at Valparaiso, dead specimens contain- 

 ing Paguri and those with the animal coming up indiscriminately. 

 Along with these there were a few univalves and Crustacea, and at 

 fifteen fathoms three specimens of a hyaline Terebratula, alive ; it is 

 about three-quarters of an inch across, and does not seem described 

 in the last edition of Lamarck : the littoral shells were not different 

 from those at Valparaiso. From Papudo we steered direct to Callao, 

 where we remained five days. I spent two of these at Lima, where 



