CHAP. JL] TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 147 



large tuft of it In a basin of salt-water, when it was dark I found that 

 as often as I rubbed any part of a branch, the whole became strongly 

 phosphorescent with a green light : I do not think I ever saw any 

 object more beautifully, so. But the remarkable circumstance was, 

 that the flashes of light always proceeded up the branches, from the 

 base towards the extremities. 



The examination of these compound animals was always very inter- 

 esting to me. What can be more remarkable than to see a plant-like 

 body producing an egg, capable of swimming about and of choosing a 

 proper place to adhere to, which then sprouts into branches, each 

 crowded with innumerable distinct animals, often of complicated 

 organizations? The branches, moreover, as we have just seen, some- 

 times possess organs -capable of movement and independent of the 

 polypi. Surprising as this union of separate individuals in a common 

 stock must always appear, every tree displays the same fact, for buds 

 must be considered as individual plants. It is, however, natural to 

 consider a polypus, furnished with a mouth, intestines, and other 

 organs, as a distinct individual, whereas the individuality of a leaf-bud 

 is not easily realized; so that the union of separate individuals in a 

 common body is more striking in a coralline than in a tree. Our con- 

 ception of a compound animal, where in some respects the individuality 

 of each is not completed, may be aided, by reflecting on the production 

 of two distinct creatures by bisecting a single one with a knife, or where 

 Nature herself performs the task of bisection. We may consider the 

 polypi in a zoophyte, or the buds in a tree, as cases where the division 

 of the individual has not been completely effected. Certainly in the 

 case of trees, and judging from analogy in that of corallines, the 

 individuals propagated by buds seem more intimately related to each 

 other, than eggs or seeds are to their parents. It seems now pretty 

 well established that plants propagated by buds all partake of a common 

 duration of life; and it is familiar to every one, what singular and 

 numerous peculiarities are transmitted with certainty, by buds, layers, 

 and grafts, which by seminal propagation never or only casually reappear. 



CHAPTER X. 



TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



Tierrn del Fuego, First Arrival Good Success Bay An Account of the 

 uegians on Board Interview with the Savages Scenery of the Forests 

 Cape Horn Wigwam Cove Miserable Condition of the Savages 

 Famines Cannibals Matricide Religious Feelings Great Gale 

 Beagle Channel Ponsonby Sound Build Wigwams and settle the 

 Fuegians Bifurcation of the Beagle Channel Glaciers Return to the 

 Ship Second Visit in the Ship to the Settlement Equality of Condition 

 amongst the Natives. 



December ijth, 1832. HAVING now finished with Patagonia and the 

 Falkland Islands, I will describe our first arrival in Tierra del Fuego. 



