I834-] A NEW OSTRICH. 221 



lieve, even to a cubic fathom of pudding. Instead I must take 

 my solitary ramble, think of Cambridge days, and pick up 

 snakes, beetles and toads. Excuse this short letter (you 

 know I never studied * The Complete Letter-writer '), and be- 

 lieve me, my dear Herbert, 



Your affectionate friend, 



CHARLES DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to J. S. If ens low. 



East Falkland Island, March, 1834. 



I am quite charmed with Geology, but like the 



wise animal between two bundles of hay, I do not know which 

 to like the best ; the old crystalline group of rocks, or the 

 softer and fossiliferous beds. When puzzling about stratifi- 

 cations, &c., I feel inclined to cry " a fig for your big oysters, 

 and your bigger megatheriums." But then when digging out 

 some fine bones, I wonder how any man can tire his arms 

 with hammering granite. By the way I have not one clear 

 idea about cleavage, stratification, lines of upheaval. I have 

 no books which tell me much, and what they do I cannot 

 apply to what I see. In consequence I draw my own con- 

 clusions, and most gloriously ridiculous ones they are, I some- 

 times fancy. . . . Can you throw any light into my mind by 

 telling me what relation cleavage and planes of deposition 

 bear to each other ? 



And now for my second section, Zoology. I have chiefly 

 been employed in preparing myself for the South Sea by 

 examining the polypi of the smaller Corallines in these lati- 

 tudes. Many in themselves are very curious, and I think are 

 quite undescribed ; there was one appalling one, allied to a 

 Flustra, which I dare say I mentioned having found to the 

 northward, where the cells have a movable organ (like a vult- 

 ure's head, with a dilatable beak), fixed on the edge. But 

 what is of more general interest is the unquestionable (as it 

 appears to me) existence of another species of ostrich, besides 

 the Struthio rhea. All the Gauchos and Indians state it is 

 the case, and I place the greatest faith in their observations. 



