74 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



was a Plantago, mucli like P. maritiina ; and another, a 

 Senecio {S. candidans), with a tall stem and large undivided 

 leaves, clothed with a white woolly substance, and yellow 

 rayless flowers. This latter plant I often met with sub- 

 sequently, in various localities in the eastern part of the 

 Strait, in general forming a well-marked zone above high- 

 water mark, and also at the edge of small salt lakes near 

 the sea, the peculiar colour of its foliage causing it to 

 be easily recognised at a considerable distance. One or 

 two of the other species of Senecio, occurring in the Strait, 

 also possess this woolly character ; but none of them are 

 plants of the same stature, nor do they grow quite so close 

 to the sea. 



It was now nearly low tide, and a large spit, from which 

 the name Punta Arenas is derived, was consequently un- 

 covered, and at its outer extremity a flock of terns (Sterna 

 cassini), with black-crowned heads and pale ash-coloured and 

 white bodies, were busily engaged in feeding, where a bed of 

 small mussels {Mytilus Chilensis) extended. The birds allowed 

 me to approach them rather near, and then rose in a body 

 into the air, flying about in a cloud over my head, and 

 uttering a torrent of sharp angry cries, indignant at the 

 stranger who had ventured to disturb them at their meal. I 

 carefully searched the rounded stones on the spit for marine 

 animals, but was not very successful in my quest. Higher 

 up on the beach, however, I met with many stranded masses 

 of MacTocystis, and from their branching roots extracted a 

 number of live specimens of a curious Isopodous crustacean 

 (Sphceroma lanceolatum), which coils itself up in a ball when 

 alarmed, as well as some molluscous horny egg-cases of a pale 

 yellow colour, which subsequent research proved to be those 

 of the Fnsus Geversianus, a characteristic Magellan mollusc. 



