BOTANICAL NEWS, 61 
we remained there. St. Vincent, where we spent four or ra cai sae caret 
me very much indeed,—partly because it pachka my fi rience of 
land in the tropics, partly on account of its intensely ir Ha videtar and 
the peculiar and, to wee crum aspect of its plants. Here I saw shrubby Eu- 
— for the first time, in the uncultivated condition, and here also I 
made practical acquaintance with ence of the Orders Zyg gophy llacee, Cu- 
curbitacee es he mals did not less interest me, for I met with Mol- 
lusca, Crustac a, Sorel pres with an forms I had been nias familiar from 
figures and ditio ns. I was in reece d find bens e Octopus and 
Aplysia which Darwin describes in his account of the neighbouring iland of 
uninteres know, of s and miles of 
pampas, ara away as far as the eye can reach, and clothed, for the most 
part, with a very tall-growing Thistle,* with a ew flower, gorgeous in some 
places ree a carpeting of "a X purple Verbenas. A ha — bluish- 
purple aa um also covered t n the neighbourhood of the tow 
only spen single day at Sinidonsdo, which, gm owever, was a sb 
ste fas one, er ioe by a party of us in taking a long ramble, in the course 
of which w with a great sicud of bi de an wd plants. . For the latter it 
appears to bon — is oo and I w: e ha more — 
h 
to take in provisions and coal, ied there till th f June, when we 
moved northwards, as the daily me Sd severity of the climate necessitated 
a suspension of surveying operati aii season. All things — 
we were very fortunate during our idees ur ground, for r though w oun- 
tered a dese nove of dangers and a ve of di feul- 
ties, we met with no serious mishaps, enjoyed for the most part e cellent 
health, Dind sccomplished a respectable proportion of work. Exeepting s a short 
cruise of a few days in the western half of the Strait, when we were occupied 
piloting H.M.S. Zealous on her way to the Pacific, our time w isap in the 
eastern i i i e 
= ng formed of 
of trees of any description "for the most part, and the geology alm 
exclusively boulder clay ; ; while that on the latter consists of high ‘peveipitons 
Bomi do the: water —elo othed with a a vegetation of dense short im- 
passible valk k and abounding in metamorphic rocks. And the clima! 
equally different, for that of the eastern portion is dry, bright, and aie, 
* Probably Cynara Cardunculus. 
