294 ASCENSION. 



grasshoppers, true friends of the desert, may be 

 met with. Some grass is scattered over the sur- 

 face of the central elevated region, and the whole 

 much resembles the worse parts of the Welsh 

 mountains; but scanty as the pasture appears, about 

 six hundred sheep, many goats, a few cows and 

 horses, all thrive well on it. Of native animals, 

 land-crabs and rats swarm in numbers. Whether 

 the rat is really indigenous may well be doubted : 

 there are two varieties, as described by Mr. Water- 

 house ; one is of a black colour, with fine glossy 

 fur, and lives on the grassy summit ; the other is 

 brown-coloured and less glossy, with longer hairs, 

 and lives near the settlement on the coast. Both 

 these varieties are one third smaller than the com- 

 mon black rat (M. rattus), and they differ from it 

 both in the colour and character of their fur, but in 

 no other essential respect. I can hardly doubt that 

 these rats (like the common mouse, which has also 

 run wild) have been imported, and, as at the Gala- 

 pagos, have varied from the effect of the new con- 

 ditions to which they have been exposed : hence 

 the variety on the summit of the island differs from 

 that on the coast. Of native birds there are none ; 

 but the guinea-fowl, imported from the Cape de 

 Verd Islands, is abundant, and the common fowl 

 has likewise run wild. Some cats, which were 

 originally turned out to destroy the rats and mice, 

 have increased so as to become a great plague. 

 The island is entirely without trees, in which, and 

 in every other respect, it is very far inferior to St. 

 Helena. 



One of my excursions took me towards the S.W. 

 extremity of the island. The day was clear and 

 hot, and I saw the island, not smiling with beauty, 

 but staring with naked hideousness. The lava- 

 streams are covered with hummocks, and are nig- 



