302 TiERRA DEL PUEGO. June, 1834. 



damp and cold limit not one occurs. That the climate 

 would not have suited some of the orders, such as lizards, 

 might have been foreseen; but with respect to frogs, this 

 was not so obvious. 



Coleopterous insects occur in very small numbers. Until 

 I had endeavoured by every means to find them, I could not 

 believe, that a country as large as Scotland, covered with 

 vegetable productions, and with a variety of stations, would 

 ever have been so unproductive. The greater part of my small 

 collection consists of alpine insects [Harpalida. and Hetero- 

 mera) found beneath stones, above the limit of the forest. 

 Lower down, with the exception of some few Curculiones 

 scarcely any could be found. The Chrysomelidse, which are 

 so pre-eminently characteristic of the Tropics, are here almost 

 entirely absent.* This must depend on the climate ; for the 

 quantity of vegetable matter is superfluously great. In the 

 hottest part of the summer the mean of the maxima for 

 thirty-seven successive days was 55°, and the thermometer 

 on some of the days rose to 60° ; yet there were no orthop- 

 tera, very few diptera, lepidoptera, or hymenoptera. 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 species, for it lives on 

 the damp herbage far from water. Land shells could only 

 be procured in the same situations with the alpine beetles. 

 I have already contrasted the climate, as well as the general 

 appearance of Tierra del Fuego with that of Patagonia; and 

 the difierence is strongly exemplified in the entomology. 



* I believe I must except one alpine Haltica, and a single specimen of 

 a Melasoma. Mr. Waterhouse, who was good enough to look at my col- 

 lection from this place, tells me, that of the Harpalidse there are eight or 

 nme species, — the forms of the greater number being very peculiar ; of 

 Heteromera, four or five species ; of Rliyncophora six or seven ; and of 

 the following families one species in each : Staphylinidae, Elateridae, Ce- 

 brionidas, Melolonthidse The species in the other orders, were even 

 fewer. In all the orders, the scarcity of the individuals was even more 

 remarkable than that of the species. 



