Sept.. 1896. A ZOOLOGIST IN TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 173 



Antarctic along the west coast, and the tropical Brazilian southwards 

 as far as the Strait of Magellan, possessing, according to Popper, a 

 mean temperature of 10^ C. The contrasts among the land fauna 

 must be even greater, as the great differences of climate and of 

 geological and physical structure necessarily exercise a considerable 

 influence on the organic life in these regions. 



I arrived at Punta Arenas (Sandy Point, lat. 53° 10' S., long. 70° 

 54' W.), capital of the Chilian territory Magellanes, on November 20, 

 and spent a month, pending the arrival of Nordenskiold, in making as 

 complete a collection as possible of representative land and marine 

 types, especially of insects, spiders, and freshwater animals, since I 

 knew that these classes had not been taken by naturalists like Darwin, 

 Cunningham, and Coppinger, who had previously visited Tierra del 

 Fuego ; nor, as I learnt at Punta Arenas, had the recent investigators, 

 Dr. W. Michaelsen, in 1892, and Dr. L. Plate, in 1894-5, given them 

 sufficient attention. My studies here were the more interesting to me, 

 since Punta Arenas lies more or less on the boundary of the two Pata- 

 gonian provinces, which differ in almost every respect. On the one side, 

 to the east, may be seen the typical Patagonian landscape, the poor, 

 arid, and very windy pampas ; on the other, westward, the rainy 

 Pacific coast, covered with immense, nearly impenetrable forests of 

 evergreen beeches and a variety of vegetation, and having a tem- 

 perature varying but sHghtly in summer and winter. In fact, a 

 remarkably distinct line of demarcation is to be found between the 

 east and west climatological provinces, some few miles to the west of 

 Punta Arenas. East of Cape Froward, the climate belongs to the 

 " pampas type," west of it to the extremely-pronounced South 

 Chilian coast type. 



In view of these circumstances, I deemed it worth while to stay 

 in Punta Arenas, in order to ascertain whether the animals of the one 

 zoogeographical province meet with those of the other. So far as my 

 own observations may permit me to judge, I think this is the case in 

 the vicinity of Punta Arenas ; here I can mention only a few of the 

 more obvious instances to support this belief, but when all the 

 collections have been worked out I have no doubt that additional 

 evidence will be forthcoming. 



Among spiders the occurrence is striking of a large Lycosid, 

 probably Lycosa aiistvalis, Simon, which I found rather abundantly 

 later on in the southern districts of Tierra del Fuego, in its forest- 

 regions, and in the southern and western archipelagoes, but looked for 

 in vain among the pampas of Patagonia (at St. Cruz and Rio Gallegos), 

 and of Tierra del Fuego. On the other hand, at no place south of the 

 Strait, nor in the western archipelago, nor at Punta Arenas, could 

 I find any specimen of a scorpion, which I met with for the first time 

 at Chubut, and afterwards at Santa Cruz and Rio Gallegos. This 

 seems to prove that it belongs exclusively to the pampas ; yet I should 

 not be at all surprised to find some specimens near Punta Arenas, as I 



