142 Miscellaneous. 



I experienced much attention from Mr. Maclean, a merchant there, 

 well-known for his attachment to science, and a very good botanist. 



I could not, owing to the disgraceful state of the country, make any 

 long excursions here, even had our time allowed ; robberies even be- 

 tween the two cities of Lima and Callao, distant only seven miles, 

 are common, and mostly performed by the soldiery, and travelling 

 in the country is well nigh impracticable. 



I spent most of my time in examining the marine productions. I 

 got a number of good Algae and a variety of fish, besides shells. The 

 littoral rocks, from the variety of animals found on them, present a 

 very gratifying picture to the lover of marine zoology : an Echinus 

 with black spines, three or four species of large and curious Actinia, 

 a Uraster (rubens ?) , a thirty-rayed Solaster, several crabs, three Chi- 

 tons (different from the Valparaiso species), Concholepas, Balanus 

 Psittacus and another species, Littorince, Trochi, large Fissurellce, &c. 

 are crowded on every rock, forming, from their varied shapes and 

 colours, a not less beautiful than instructive sight : some of the spe- 

 cies are the same with the Chilian, but many different. 



The island of San Lorenzo interested me much ; it is composed of 

 thin strata of a blackish volcanic schist ; the angle is low, and it is 

 everywhere split into small cubical masses in a direction at right 

 angles to the stratification. With the exception of one or two patches 

 of a Schevinia and two or three other succulent plants near the sea, 

 there is not a particle of vegetation, the island being covered by 

 brown drifting sand, among which are mixed innumerable shells and 

 other marine productions in various degrees of preservation, some 

 preserving even their colour, others fragmentary and decayed : the 

 greatest depth to which I could penetrate presented the same loose 

 sand, and equally loaded with organic remains. All the species I 

 found alive in the bay, Concholepas, Pecten, Crepidula, were the most 

 plentiful, but there were many others ; many had Balani attached. 



What struck me most was the excellent preservation of some of 

 the specimens ; the Pecten (very like our P. opercularis) in many in- 

 stances preserved its fine red colour, while at other times the shells 

 were as much decayed as if they had come out of the London clay. I 

 tried, by digging down as far as I could, to ascertain if the lower 

 layers were in better preservation than the upper, but I found the 

 same mixture as on the top. In some places great abundance of 

 dead shells of a small striped Bulimus were plentiful. I found two 

 live ones only after a long search ; they had their mouths closed by a 

 mucous epiphragm like our snails in winter. The loose sand con- 

 taining these semifossils is continually being drifted by the wind. 



The bay of Callao swarms with fish, and consequently with large 

 pelicans and multitudes of other piscivorous birds. Four species of 

 sharks and enormous sting-rays (Trygori) are plentiful. 



We are just now going into the bay of Paita, where we only stay 

 for meridian distances, and thence go to Guyaquil or Puna for the 

 same purpose ; we then start for the Galapagos and then to Pa- 

 nama ; we shall most likely arrive at the latter place some time in 

 February. 



