XXXIV 



Before the close of that same year (1831) Charles Darwin 

 had sailed in the 'Beagle,' then bound on a surveying voyage, 

 and he did not return to this country till October 2nd, 1836, 

 having been away nearly five years. 



There is no doubt that in the observations made during that 

 voyage, and the reflections thereby occasioned, we may trace the 

 germs of nearly all his later writings. It has therefore appeared 

 to me desirable that the Entomological Notes, in his ' Journal of 

 Eesearches,' which are, I am sorry to say, few and far between, 

 should be put together collectively ; and, bearing in mind that 

 these observations Vv^ere all made before the writer had attained 

 the demure age of 28, this record of his youth can scarcely fail 

 to interest those who are now regretting his death in his 74th 

 year. 



St. Paul's Eocks, a small islet which rises abruptly from the 

 depths of the Atlantic, 540 miles from the coast of South 

 America, was visited February 16th, 1832. The highest point 

 is only fifty feet above the level of the sea, and the entire circum- 

 ference is under three-quarters of a mile. 



" Not a single plant, nor even a lichen grows on this islet ; 

 yet it is inhabited by several insects and spiders. The following 

 list completes, I believe, the terrestrial fauna : — A fly {Olfersia) 

 living on the booby, and a tick which must have come here as a 

 parasite on the birds ; a small brown moth belonging to a genus 

 that feeds on feathers ; a beetle (Qiiedius), and a woodlouse 

 from beneath the dung ; and lastly, numerous spiders, which, I 

 suppose, prey on these small attendants and scavengers of the 

 waterfowl. 



"The often-repeated description of the stately palm and other 

 noble tropical plants, their birds, and lastly, man, taking posses- 

 sion of the coral islets as soon as formed in the Pacific, is 

 probably not quite correct ; I fear it destroys the poetiy of this 

 aiovj, that feather and dirt-feeding and parasitic insects and 

 spiders should be the first inhabitants of newly-formed oceanic 

 land." 



Piio de Janeiro was visited Ajml 4th, 1832, and, in making an 

 excursion thence more than a hundred miles into the interior, 



