THE ANTARCTIC QUESTION — M ACHAT. 473 



and a number of mosses — and M. Skottsberg attributes their presence 

 to a recent glacial advance. 



In antarctic flora the phanerogamic plants are but rare and curious 

 exceptions. Their extreme soutliern localities, so far as at present 

 known, are: Cockburn Island and the neighborhood of Danco Land 

 (lat. 64° 12' S.), where M. Racovitsa made observations; the " nuna- 

 tak " Castor on Seal Island, studied by the expedition of the Ant- 

 arctic; and finally on Wandel Island (lat. 05.4°), where M. Turquet, 

 of the Franqais^ made interesting discoveries. The limit in altitude 

 of i^lant life necessarily varies considerably. Skottsberg gathered 

 mosses and lichens on Paulet Island at a height of 360 meters.* 



The striking characteristics of this flora are the great abundance 

 of coast seaweeds and of diatoms, which exj^lains the swarming of 

 animals in several localities and the numerous species of mosses (50, 

 according to M. Turquet) and lichens, some of which are bipolar. 

 But phanerogamic plants are not lacking. A species of small grass, 

 Aira antarctica^ observed by Hacovitsa on Cockburn Island, and by 

 Otto Nordenskjold on the open shores of Orleans Canal, was also 

 found by M. Turquet on Wandel Island. At Biscoe Bay, to the south 

 of Antwerp Island, this plant, he says, forms veritable prairies among 

 the low hills. Among the mosses it is associated with a rather unde- 

 veloped species of Caryophille, which he saw for the first time, the 

 Colohanthus crassifolius, its diminutive greenish flowers being hardly 

 distinguishable from the leaves.'' These two plants are found in the 

 flora of Tierra del Fuego; they should be regarded as wanderers from 

 the austral flora in the antarctic realm, in the midst of climatic condi- 

 tions entirely unfavorable. Mount Gauss, isolated as a nunatak amid 

 boundless ice fields, and far from any center of j^ropagation, has not 

 presented them to observers. 



The rigorous antarctic landscape of ice and rocks is enlivened by a 

 immerous fauna of cetaceans and birds peculiar to the region." The 

 great abundance of food in the water — fishes, crustaceans, diatoms, 

 and " plankton " — attracts the seals and birds to the ice bank, particu- 

 larly to its very sea edge. During the comparatively Avarmer months, 

 however, they live on clear spots along the shore, and even on the 

 edge of the land ice. It is here, principally, that the birds propa- 

 gate. Thus there are observed migrations of great geographic and 

 practical interest in which but a few species are not included. 



The fauna in this locality differs from that of the islands of the 

 south Indian and Atlantic oceans, and that of Tierra del Fuego, 

 which may be classed as " subantarctic." The fauna of Victoria Land 



* Geogr. Journ,, 1904, pp. 655, 663. 



''Doctor Charcot: Op. cit, pp. 434, 435. 



"De Gerlache: Op. cit, p. 190. Doctor Charcot: Op. cit, p. 419 (Turquet). 



