154 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



shape like those of our familiar plant. Close by, one meets 

 with a similar flower with neeclle-like leaves, like those of a 

 heath ; close by again, is another growing on a low bush with 

 leaves, something in the style of those of the holly : then again, 

 another with extremely sharp stout thorny spines for leaves, 

 then another heath-like, but with the leaves reduced to small 

 tubercles. These are all forms with this one sort of flower (I 

 speak only as to outward appearance). One easily finds a white- 

 flowered daisy as it were, ringing similar changes, and so on. 

 Lobelias, again, are to be seen with exactly similar looking blue 

 flowers ringing all the changes of heath forms, spiny forms, &c. 



Amongst the animals which live on the Cape Peninsula, 

 the Clawless otter (Luira inunguis), is, worthy of mention : it is 

 a very large otter, twice or three times as large when full grown 

 as the European one. It lives about the salt marshes and lakes, 

 and is tolerably common ; it hunts like the South American 

 marine otter, in companies, but only of three or four. It has no 

 claws on the fore feet, having lost them by natural selection in 

 some way or other, and on the hinder feet the claws are 

 wanting on the outer toes, and only rudiments of them remain 

 on the middle ones. There are, however, pits marking the 

 places where the claws used to exist. The webbing between 

 the toes is also in this otter rudimentary ; the beast altogether 

 is very heavily built, with the head very broad and powerful. 

 It appears to be an otter bent on returning to land habits. 



I found two species of Land Planarian worms on some 

 American Agaves, in the grounds of the Observatory. At first I 

 thought these Planarians might have been introduced from 

 South America with the Agaves, but they correspond in structure 

 exactly with the genus Rhyncliodemus of Ceylon, and seem 

 certainly indigenous, although Land Planarians were not hitherto 

 known to exist in Africa.* 



A small Chameleon is very abundant everywhere on the 

 hedges near Cape Town. We had one alive in the ward-room : 



* For a description of these Planarians, and an account of the Land 

 Planarians obtained during the voyage elsewhere, see H. N. Moseley, 

 " Notes on the Structure of several forms of Land Planarians." Quar. 

 Journ. Micro. Sci., Vol. XVII, New Ser., p. 273. 



