104 CATTLE ON HOG ISLAND. 



30^000 head) until the j^ear I860, he is bound to 

 reclaim annually a certain number, and supply 

 them to purchasers at the fixed rate of thirty shil- 

 ling-s a head. 



We landed on Hog* Island where Capt. Sulivan's 

 herd of eleven hundred cattle (besides a number of 

 horses) had been kept during- the winter, supported 

 chiefly by the tussock g-rass fringing' the shore, 

 which they had cropped so closely that, being- a 

 perennial ])lant of slow g-rowth, two years' rest 

 would be required to enable it to reg-ain its former 

 vigour. Larg-e patches of this mag-nificent g-rass * — 

 JJactylis OBsjntosa of botanists— along- the shores of 

 the main land have been destroyed by the cattle in 

 their fondness for the nutritious base of the stem, a 

 small portion of which, as thick as the httle iing'er, 

 has a pleasant taste and may be eaten bj" man, to 

 whom it has occasionally furnished the principal 

 means of subsistence when w andering- in the wilds 

 of these inhospitable islands. Great numbers of up- 

 land g-eese ( ChloepJmga Magellanica), chiefly in small 

 flocks, were feeding' on various berries and the tender 

 g-rass. Althoug'h seldom molested on this island, 

 they became rather wary after a ie\Y shots had been 

 fired — still a sufficient number to answer our pur- 

 pose were procured without much difficulty. Unlike 



* For a full account of this useful plant, the growth of which 

 in Britain in certain favourable maritime situations has been at- 

 tempted on a large scale, I would refer to Botany of the Antarctic 

 Voyage, by Dr. J. D. Hooker, p. 384, and pi. \ZQ and 137. 



