122 TASMANIA AND THE ANTARCTIC 



father, and received a warm welcome. Twice the naturalist 

 came on board the Erebus and spent all day looking over the 

 Southern collections. ' He is delighted,' Hooker writes to his 

 father on July 18, ' with my drawings of sea animals, of which 

 many are entirely new ; I must, however, redouble my efforts 

 on that head, little as I care about them, as I hear that the 

 Americans have done much during their voyage to them, and 

 that, McLeay says, is the only thing they have done.' 



On the way to Sydney ' the tow-net produced some new 

 and good things for the pencil, and we actually brought up 

 several live animals from a depth of 400 fathoms ! Lat. 38 32' 

 and long. 167 40', but no trace of vegetable life.' 



The presence of living corals at such great depths was 

 pronounced very remarkable. 1 Some of the shells Captain 

 King recognised as South American, especially the small yellow 

 bivalve from the Macrocystis (the seaweed found floating far 

 to the south, thousands of miles from the American coast). 



Among the Auckland Island sea animals, he marked * a 

 Galathea very like an Arctic one,' while ' a curious animal 

 from Kerguelen's Land approaches more nearly to the fossil 

 Trilobites than any hitherto discovered, the antennae being 

 apparently wanting, and the eyes are as in the fossil 

 Entomostraca.' 



McLeay was full of stories of Dr. Buckland and his blue 

 bag ; but only one is recorded in the Journal. ' Dr. Buckland 

 could tell the age of a skull by the taste, which he proved by 

 producing that of an old woman buried a few years before, 

 which tasted greasy, &c. &c.' 



A long visit to McLeay's garden proved it to be a botanist's 

 paradise. ' My surprise was unbounded at the natural beauties 

 of the spot, the inimitable taste with which the grounds were 

 laid out, and the number and rarity of the plants which were 

 collected together.' 



1 On Sept. 1, 1845, Hooker writes to Ross : * I read in the Ann. Nat. Hist. 

 a notice of Goodsir's labours with Sir J. Franklin. He seems to be doing 

 remarkably well, as the notice said that 300 fms. was greater dredgings 

 than had ever been obtained before. I wrote an answer to the Editor, saying 

 we had repeatedly dredged at that and at greater depths, giving a few general 

 remarks as proofs.' 



