GREAT SEA-WEED. 307' 



tei-flies, or bees, and no crickets or Orthoptera. In 

 the pools of water I found but few aquatic beetles, 

 and not any fresh-water shells : Succinea at first 

 appears an exception ; but here it must be called 

 a terrestrial shell, for it lives on the damp herbage 

 far from water. Land-shells could be procured 

 only in the same alpine situations with the beetles. 

 I have already contrasted the climate, as well as 

 the general appearance of Tierra del Fuego, with 

 that of Patagonia, and the difference is strongly 

 exemplified in the entomology. I do not believe 

 they have one specTies in common ; certainly the 

 general character of the insects is widely different. 



If we turn from the land to the sea, we shall 

 find the latter as abundantly stocked with living 

 creatures as the former is poorly so. In all parts 

 of the world a rocky and partially protected shore 

 perhaps supports, in a given space, a greater num- 

 beiv of individual animals than any other station. 

 There is one marine production, which, from its 

 importance, is worthy of a particular history. It is 

 the kelp, or Macrocystis pyrifera. This plant grows 

 on every rock from low-water mark to a great 

 depth, both on the outer coast and within the chan- 

 nels.* I believe, during the voyages of the Ad- 

 ventui'e and Beagle, not one rock near the surface 

 was discovered which was not buoyed by this float- 

 species in each : Staphylinidae, ElateridEe, Cebrionidae, Melolon- 

 thiiiae. The species in the other orders are even fewer. In all 

 the orders, the scarcity of the individuals is even more remarkable 

 than that of the species. Most of the Coleoptera have been care- 

 fully described by Mr. Waterhouse in the Annals of Nat. Hist. 



* Its geographical range is remarkably wide ; it is found from 

 the extreme southern islets near Cape Horn, as far north on the 

 eastern coast (according to information given me by Mr. Stokes) 

 as lat. 43°, but on the western coast, as Dr. Hooker tells me, it 

 extends to the R. San Francisco in California, and perhaps even 

 to Kamtschatka. We thus have an immense range in latitude ; 

 and as Cook, who must have been well acquainted with the spa. 

 cies, found it at Kerguelen Land, no less than 140° in longitude. 



