THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 325 



and diffusing a wonderfully genial heat. We saw several 

 humming-birds and kingfishers ; and I was greatly interested 

 by the discovery, on the part of one of my companions (Dr. 

 Campbell), of a minute frog, striped with narrow longitudinal 

 bands of purplish black and pale primrose yellow, and with 

 the under surface of the feet of a pale vermilion colour* 

 Several plants were also obtained for the first time, and among 

 these a fine Coniferous tree of the tribe Taxinece, the Podocar- 

 jpus nuhigenus, which I afterwards found to be common 

 throughout the Messier Channel, as well as at Port Otway, 

 in the Chonos Archipelago, and at Chiloe. Hitherto, I believe, 

 it had not been met with to the south of the Chonos Archi- 

 pelago. A second discovery was that of a curious little 

 dwarf conifer, forming a low undershrub, with decumbent 

 branches thickly covered with small scaly imbricated leaves, 

 and which was extensively distributed over the low ground 

 near the landing-place. I could not then succeed in finding 

 any specimens in fruit, and did not know, till I had the 

 pleasure of meeting Professor Philippi at Santiago about six 

 months later, that it was the LepidotJiamnus Fonki described 

 by him from specimens obtained in the mountains of Yal- 

 divia and the Chonos Archipelago, at a height of about 2000 

 feet. The following season I found that it w^as extensively 

 distributed throughout the Channels, extending as far south 

 as Mayne Harbour, in one of the Owen Islands (Sarmiento 

 Channel). Owing, I suppose, to the difference of latitude in 

 the Channels, it does not there appear to attain such an alti- 

 tude, extending from the sea-level only to an elevation of 500 or 

 600 feet. It does not occur in the Strait of Magellan, and I 

 did not observe it at Port Otway (peninsula of Tres Montes) ; 



* This little creature aftenvards proved to be the type of a new genus, to 

 which Dr. Giinther has given the name of Nannophi-yne. — Froc. Zool. Soc. 

 1870, p. 401. 



