LACUNA LEONA. 41 



under the delusion that he was a pet much in favor perhaps with the 

 children at the shepherd's shanty which we were approaching, where 

 we stopped long enough to refresh ourselves with a lunch consisting of 

 cold mutton and most excellent bread and coffee, hastily prepared and set 

 before us by the Falkland Island wife of the shepherd who occupied the 

 shanty. This frugal but ample lunch was none the less appreciated after 

 our experience of the previous night, and, since it was our first refresh- 

 ment for the day, we required no other relish than that provided by our 

 twenty-mile ride over the pampa in the teeth of a stiff morning breeze, to 

 stimulate our appetite to its full enjoyment 



Breakfast finished, I improved the short time allowed the horses for 

 grazing in learning what I could of the basin, its lake and enclosing 

 bluffs. On emerging from the cabin, a narrow strip of green grass was 

 seen to commence near the top of the cliff and extend down its side and 

 for a short distance out into the valley. So distinct was the brilliant 

 green of this narrow strip from the withered brown of all that surrounded 

 it, that it appeared as a green line ruled upon a brown surface. I at once 

 divined its origin, and on approaching nearer was not surprised to see a 

 beautiful rivulet of sparkling clear water dashing over its bed of many- 

 colored pebbles on its way from its source near the summit of the cliff to 

 the drouth-stricken valley beneath. This stream had determined the 

 presence of the shanty and its inmates at such a seemingly out-of-the- 

 way place. As I walked along toward the source of this little rivulet, I 

 was struck with the distinctive character of the fauna and flora immedi- 

 ately adjacent to it It was a miniature oasis in a vast, semi-arid, if not 

 desert country. Instead of the dried-up and withered grasses of the 

 plains there was an abundant growth of rich green grasses and sedges, 

 with Equisetum, wild celery, and other moisture-loving plants fringing the 

 banks, which were covered with mosses and Hepaticae, while clinging to 

 the rocks in the water were masses of Chara, beautiful green Algae and 

 other plants, in the branches of which swarmed myriads of amphipods, 

 gastropods and bivalve molluscs, leeches, annelids, etc. Under the stones 

 and in the grass along the margin were secreted a profusion of spiders, sow- 

 bugs and beetles, belonging to those genera and species which are lovers 

 of moist places. Nor was the change in fauna restricted to such small 

 and inconspicuous forms as those just mentioned, for upon climbing the 

 slope to the point, some thirty feet beneath the surface of the plain, where 



