1836.] CHANGES IN THE VEGETATION. 357 



might have been expected, are very few in number ; indeed I believe all 

 the birds have been introduced within late years. Partridges and 

 pheasants are tolerably abundant ; the island is much too English not 

 to be subject to strict game-laws. I was told of a more unjust sacrifice 

 to such ordinances than I ever heard of even in England. The poor 

 people formerly used to burn a plant, which grows on the coast-rocks, 

 and export the soda from its ashes ; but a peremptory order came out 

 prohibiting this practice, and giving as a reason that the partridges 

 would have nowhere to build ! 



In my walks I passed more than once over the grassy plain, bounded 

 by deep valleys, on which Longwood stands. Viewed from a short 

 distance, it appears like a respectable gentleman's country-seat. In 

 front there are a few cultivated fields, and beyond them the smooth 

 hill of coloured rocks called the Flagstaff, and the rugged square black 

 mass of the Barn. On the whole the view was rather bleak and 

 uninteresting. The only' inconvenience I suffered during my walks 

 was from the impetuous winds. One day I noticed a curious circum- 

 stance : standing on the edge of a plain, terminated by a great cliff of 

 about a thousand feet in depth, I saw at the distance of a few yards 

 right to windward, some tern, struggling against a very strong breeze, 

 whilst, where I stood, the air was quite calm. Approaching close to 

 the brink, where the current seemed to be deflected upwards from the 

 face of the cliff, I stretched out my arm, and immediately felt the full 



from the vast number of cattle and horses, the fine plains of turf are richly 

 manured, it is vain to seek the many kinds of dung-feeding beetles, which 

 occur so abundantly in Europe. I observed only an Oryctes (the insects of 

 this genus in Europe generally feed on decayed vegetable matter) and two 

 species of Phanaeus, common in such situations. On the opposite side of the 

 Cordillera in Chiloe, another species of Phanseus is exceedingly abundant, 

 and it buries the dung of the cattle in large earthen balls beneath the ground. 

 There is reason to believe that the genus Phanaeus, before the introduction 

 of cattle, acted as scavengers to man. In Europe, beetles, which find support 

 in the matter which has already contributed towards the life of other and 

 larger animals, are so numerous, that there must be considerably more than 

 one hundred different species. Considering this, and observing what a 

 quantity of food of this kind is lost on the plains of La Plata, I imagined I 

 saw an instance where man had disturbed that chain, by which so many 

 animals are linked together in their native country. In Van Diemen's Land, 

 however, I found four species of Onthophagus, two of Aphodius, and one of 

 a third genus, very abundant unaer the dung of cows ; yet these latter 

 animals had been then introduced only thirty-three years. Previously to 

 that time, the Kangaroo and some otner small animals were the only quad- 

 rupeds; and their dung is of a very different quality from that of their suc- 

 cessors introduced by man. In England tne greater number of stercovorous 

 beetles are confined in their appetites ; ttiat is, they do not depend indiffer- 

 ently on any quadruped for the means of subsistence. The change, there- 

 fore, in habits, which must have taken place in Van Diemen's Land, is 

 highly remarkable. I am indebted to the Rev. F W. Hope, who, I hope, 

 will permit me to call him my master in Entomology, for giving me tho 

 names of the foregoing insects. 



