470 ST. HELEXA. [CHAP. xxt. 



are very few in number; indeed I believe all the 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 iinjust 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 woiild have nowhere to biiild ! 



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 cultivated fields, and beyond 

 them the smooth hill of coloured rocks called the Flagstaff, and 

 the rugged square black mass of the Barn. On the whole the view 

 was rather bleak and uninteresting. The only inconvenience 1 

 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, strug- 

 gling against a very strong breeze, whilst, where I stood, the air 



only au Oryctes (the insects of this genus in Europe generally feed on 

 decayed vegetable matter) and two species of Phausous, common in such 

 situations. On the opposite side of the Cordillera in Chiloe, another 

 species of Phanseus is exceedingly abundant, and it buries the dung of the 

 cattle in large earthen balls beneath the ground. There is reason to believe 

 that the genus Phanseus, before the introduction of cattle, acted as 

 scavengers to man. In Europe, beetles, which find support in the matter 

 which has already contributed towards the life of other and larger 

 animals, are so numerous, tliat there must be considerably more than one 

 hundred different species. Considering this, and observing what a 

 quantity of food of this kiud is lost on the plains of La Plata, I imagined 

 I saw an instance where man had disturbed that chain, by which so many 

 animals are linked together in their native country. In Van Diemeu'a 

 Land, however, I found four species of Onthophagus, two of Aphodius, and 

 one of a third genus, very abundant under the dung of cows; yet these 

 latter animals had been then introduced only thirty-three years. Previously 

 to that time, the Kangaroo and some other small animals were the only 

 quadrupeds; and their dung is of a very different quality from that of 

 their successors introduced by man. In England the greater number of 

 stercovorous beetles are confined in their appetites ; that is, they do not 

 depend indifferently on any quadruped for the means of subsistence. The 

 change, therefore, in habits, which must have taken place in Van Diemeu's 

 Laud, is highly remarkable. I am indebted to the Itcv. F. W. Hope, who, 

 I hope, will permit me to call him my master in Entomology, for giving 

 me the names of the foregoing insects. 



