THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 447 



largest specimen, taken a day or two later, measured upwards 

 of a foot in length. In the evening one of the men caught a 

 handsome species of Sebastes (S. oculatus), of a fine scarlet colour. 

 This fish had been previously recorded from Valparaiso, so that 

 it is distributed over more than twenty degrees of latitude. 



Next day (16th), which was moderately fine, heavy 

 showers only falling now and then, in ascending a steep hill, 

 upwards of a thousand feet in height, I obtained specimens 

 of a pretty Composite plant, new to me — the white-flowered 

 Senecio trifurcatus ; and I was surprised by disturbing an 

 upland goose and gander, with a brood of young ones, the 

 only specimens of the species ever observed by me in the 

 Channels. On my return to the beach, in struggling through 

 a belt of wood, so dense was the undergrowth that I was com- 

 pelled to walk for some distance along the branches of the 

 trees, from the impossibility of reaching the ground. 



The morning of the 17th was rather fine, and a good 

 deal of excitement was caused on board by the appearance 

 of a schooner in the distance. The Indians were the first 

 to perceive her, and directed our attention to her by shouts 

 and gesticulations, several of them pulling off in a canoe to 

 meet her. We were for a short time in doubt as to whether 

 she was coming our way, but she gradually bore down upon 

 us under Yankee colours, and by-and-by anchored alongside. 

 Soon after, one of the officers went on board of her, and 

 learned that she was the " Mary Nason," under the command 

 of Captain Sparkes, from Province Town, Massachusetts, 

 bound on a whaling cruise, having left home six months 

 previously, and passed through the Strait of Magellan, 



The afternoon of that day was devoted by a party of us to 

 a fishing expedition, and we captured a number of Notothenice, 

 as well as a single specimen of the Aphritis goMo, first taken 



