56 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



into it ; at the same time, it is certainly wonderful how much 

 can be accommodated in a cabin six feet square, with a 

 due amount of consideration. After a time I used regularly 

 to devote a portion of the day preceding that on which we 

 left harbour to wedging up everything movable, otherwise 

 one had a considerable chance of being buried alive in a chaos 

 of books, dried plants, and animals preserved in spirit. 

 Towards sunset the atmosphere became foggy, and later in 

 the evening I was surprised by finding some live beetles in 

 the towing-net. Some of these were terrestrial, and others 

 fluviatile forms ; and as I was greatly interested by the 

 peculiarity of the circumstance, I applied to my friend Mr. 

 Gray (the principal navigating officer) for information as to 

 our exact position with relation to the land. An examination 

 of the chart revealed that we were forty miles off Cape 

 Corrientes on the Argentine coast, and on subsequently 

 turning to Mr. Darwin's Journal, I found that he had observed 

 the same phenomenon in the same latitude, i.e. seventeen 

 miles off Cape Corrientes. He remarks that those specimens 

 which he preserved belonged to the genera Colymbetes, 

 Hydroporus, Notaphus, Cynucus, Adimonia, and Scarabceus, 

 and that he at first thought they had been blown from the 

 shore, but that on reflecting that of the eight species which 

 were obtained, four were aquatic, and two others partly so, it 

 appeared more probable that they had been carried into the 

 sea by a small stream which drains a lake near Cape 

 Corrientes. I am informed by Mr. C. Waterhouse of the 

 British Museum, who has kindly furnished me with the names 

 of some of the Coleoptera which I collected, that among those 

 taken in the towing-net on this occasion are a Po&cilus, a 

 Colymhetes, a Philhydrus, a Coccinella, and the Uriops con- 

 nexa. It is not a little curious that two observations so 



