I i83;i.] 257 



Entomological collecting durinq a voyage in the Pacific. — ylYie following ex- 

 tracts frotn a letter addressed to the Rev. W. W. Fowler, in continuation of former 

 communications {vide E. M. M., xviii, 81, and xix, 22), have been kindly placed at our 

 disposal.— Eds.]. — The entire Pacific Squadron, consisting of seven sliips, left Callao 

 on February 13th for an evolutionai-y cruise to the southward. We ran out to lat. 

 33° S. long. 93° W. before shaping a com-se for Juan Fernandez. The weather was 

 very fine, with light winds and smooth water, but the absence of animal life, at more 

 than 100 miles from the South American coast, was most remarkable. For weeks 

 together we did not see a living creature in the sea or air, this part of the South 

 Pacific being a veritable ocean desei't. After the first week or two the cruise became 

 very monotonous, and every one in the Fleet, I believe, was truly glad to see terra 

 firma again on the morning of March 17th, when we sighted the island of Juan 

 Fernandez. The sliips anchored in Cumberland Bay, a small and rather exposed 

 indentation in the north coast of the island, the same afternoon, and remained until 

 the 20th. I do not think I have seen anything to equal the scenery here since 

 leaving the straits of Magellan ; the bay being roughly semicircular in shape, walled 

 in by steep and rugged hills, which are densely wooded in their higher portions, even 

 on slopes so steep as to deserve the name of precipices, where one would think that 

 no tree could find root-hold. These hills culminate in a huge flat-topped mountain, 

 a most striking object from the anchorage, called the " Yunque " or Anvil, from a 

 fancied resemblance wliich it bears to that article in outline. There is very little 

 level or cultivated gi'ound ; near the beach are the remains of a small Spanish Fort, 

 and a few wooden huts occupied by the 50 or 60 inhabitants of the island, who live 

 by fishing, tending cattle, and cutting timber, as well as seal-hunting in the season. 



I was able to land two or three times, and ascended the hills some 2000 feet, to 

 " Selkirk's Look-out," a slight dip in the central ridge of the island, where a cast iron 

 tablet is erected to the memory of that famous mariner, and whence a magnificent 

 view is obtained. The vegetation is extremely luxuriant and varied, a sweet-scented 

 myrtle forming a large portion of the undergi'owth, and wild peach trees (said to 

 have been introduced by Anson in 1711) are abundant. A few palm trees still linger 

 on the higher and less accessible slopes, but have been nearly exterminated by the 

 settlers, the wood (called here " Clionta") being in great demand at Valparaiso for 

 walking sticks. I met with many familiar English plants, such as wild strawberry, 

 teazle, sheep's sorrel, vervain, wild radish, thistles, docks, &c., and, at elevations 

 greater than 500 feet, the common balm {Melissa officinalis) formed a large portion 

 of the herbage. The most noticeable feature of the vegetation, however, is the ex- 

 traordinary luxuriance and beauty of the ferns, of which I observed more than 20 

 species, some of them almost deserving the name of tree-ferns. In damp places the 

 " Panke," Gunnera scahra, grows very luxuriantly ; this is the grandest herbaceous 

 plant I have ever seen ; six or eight gigantic leaves, a yard or more in diameter, 

 shaped somewhat like those of the sycamore tree, and with round scabrous footstalks 

 four feet long and as thick as one's wrist, spring from a rough brown horizontal stem 

 eight or ten feet long and as many inches in diameter, the small reddish flowers 

 growing in a loose erect spike about two feet long. The leaf-stalks are eaten by the 

 inhabitants, and somewhat resemble rhubarb ; nearly every one of them was bored 

 by a Lepidopterous larva, and by splitting them open I got a number of nupae, which 

 produced a curious silky-looking, broad-winged, dark brown JS'ociita, whose affinities 



