236 TIERRA DEL FUEGO. LCHAP. XI, 
lar, bright-yellow fungus, which grows in vast numbers on the 
beech-trees. "When young it is elastic and turgid, with a smooth 
surface ; but when mature, it shrinks, becomes tougher. and has its 
entire surface deeply pitted or honey- 
combed, as represented in the accom- 
panying wood-cut. This fungus be- 
longs to a new and curious genus ;* I 
found a second species on another spe- 
cies of beech in Chile; and Dr. Hooker 
informs me, that just lately a third 
species has been discovered on a third 
species of beech in Van Diemen’s 
Land. How singular is this relation- 
ship between parasitical fungi and the trees on which they grow, 
in distant parts of the world! In Tierra del Fuego the fungus 
in its tough and mature state is collected in large quantities by 
the women and children, and is eaten uncooked. It has a muci- 
laginous, slightly sweet taste, with a faint smell like that of a 
mushroom, With the exception of a few berries, chiefly of a 
dwarf arbutus, the natives eat no vegetable food besides this fun- 
gus. In New Zealand, before the introduction of the potato, 
the roots of the fern were largely consumed ; at the present time, 
I believe, Tierra del Fuego is the only country in the world 
where a cryptogamic plant affords a staple article of focd. 
The zoology of Tierra del Fuego, as might have been expected 
from the nature of its climate and vegetation, is very poor. Of 
mammalia, besides whales and seals, there is one bat, a kind of 
mouse (Reithrodon chinchilloides), two true mice, a .ctenomys 
allied to or identical with the tucutuco, two foxes (Canis Magel- 
lanicus and C. Azare), a sea-otter, the guanaco, and a deer. 
Most of these animals inhabit only the drier eastern parts of the 
country ; and the deer has never been seen south of the Strait of 
Magellan. Observing the general correspondence of the cliffs 
of soft sandstone, mud, and shingle, on the opposite sides of the 
Strait, and on some intervening islands, one is strongly tempted 
* Described from my specimens, and notes by the Rev. J. M. Berkeley, in 
the Linnean Transactions (vol. xix. p. 37), under the name of Cyttaria 
Darwinii: the Chilian species is the C. Berteroii. This genus is allied to 
Bulgaria. 
