82 IfATURAL HISTORY OF 



acquaintance with tlie entomology of the Strait did not cause 

 me to alter my opinion in this respect. 



In the evening several of the men were amusing them- 

 selves in fishing from the ship, and some specimens of a 

 curious worm-like fish, the Myxine Australis, discovered by 

 Mr. Darwin, were taken. A dead valve of a bivalve 

 mollusc was also obtained, with a curious flattened disc-like 

 horny case, about an inch and a half in diameter, attached 

 to the inner surface, which, on being opened, was found to 

 contain three shells of a young Gasteropod, apparently a 

 species of Fusus. The shells were about one-fourth of an 

 inch long, of a delicate pink colour, with a thickened and dis- 

 torted spire. 



On the following day I landed with three of the officers 

 who were bent on parrot-shooting, and remained in the woods 

 with them till late in the afternoon botanising and zoologising. 

 On the outskirts of the trees I found several plants that I had 

 not observed in my former walks, and among these were a 

 buttercup growing about a foot high (Banunculus peduncularis) 

 and a white-flowered Anemone (A. decapetala), which, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Hooker, possesses " a very extended range through- 

 out the American continent," — in North America abounding 

 " from the Arctic Circle to the Columbia river on the west 

 coast, and New York on the east ; while, in South America, it 

 reappears in Peru and Chili on the west side, and in South 

 Brazil in the east, extending from each as far south as the Strait 

 of Magellan." It was a bright sunny day, and numerous butter- 

 flies belonging to two species — one apparently a Pieris, and the 

 other a small copper-coloured Lyccena — were fluttering about 

 the flowers. These, with two other species subsequently 

 taken, constitute the only diurnal Lepidoptera observed by me 

 in these regions. 



