i8j6.J A CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE. 481 



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 Culti- 

 vated fields, and beyond them the smooth hill of coloured 

 rocks called the Flagstaff, and the rugged sqi'iare 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 circumstance : 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, wiiere 1 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 force of the 

 wind: an invisible barrier, two yards in width, separated 

 perfectly calm air from a strong blast. 



common in such situations. On the opposite side of the Cordillera in Chlloe, 

 another species of Phanaeus is exceedingly abundant, and it buries the dung ot 

 the callle 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 Etirope, beetles, which find support in the matter which has 

 already contributed towards the life of other and larfyer animals, are so 

 numerous, that there must be considerably more than one hundred different 

 species. Considerin;j this, and observing what a quantity of food of this kind is 

 lost on the plains ot La Plata, I imagined I saw an instance where man had 

 filsturbed that chain, by which so many animals are linked together in their 

 native country. In Van Dicmen's Land, hoxyevcr, I found tour species of 

 (^nthophagus, two of Anhodius, and one of a third genus, very abtmdant under 

 the dung otcows ; yet these latter animals had been then introduced only thirty- 

 three years. Previously to that time, the Kangaroo and sornc other small 

 • nimals were the only quadrupeds ; and their dung it of a very difTcrent quality 

 •n that of their successors introduced by man. In Knyland the greater 

 inber ot stercovorous bertles are confined m their appetites : that is, they do 

 t depend indifterently on any quadruped for the means of subsistence. The 

 mgej therefore, in liabits, which must have taken place in Van Dicmcn'a 

 id, IS highly remarkable. I am indcbtetl to the Rev. F. W. Hope, who, 

 liope, will permit me to call him mv m.ister in I'".iitf)molo!rv, for fiivinr nif the 

 M iine»of the foregoing insert' 



