238 TIERRA DEL FUEGO. [cuap. xz, 
well as in that of the Falkland Islands. I do not ground tlus 
statement merely on my own observation, but I heard it from 
the Spanish inhabitants of the latter place, and from Jemmy 
Button with regard to Tierra del Fuego. On the banks of the 
Santa Cruz, in 50° south, I saw a frog; and it is not improbable 
that these animals, as well as lizards, may be found as far south 
as the Strait of Magellan, where the country retains the charac- 
ter of Patagonia; but within the damp and cold limit of Tierra 
del Fuego not one occurs. That the climate would not have 
suited some of the orders, such as lizards, might have been fore- 
seen; but with respect to frogs, this was not so obvious. : 
Beetles occur in very small numbers: it was loug before 
I could believe that a country as large as Scotland, covered with 
vegetable productions and with a variety of stations, could be so 
unproductive. The few which I found were alpine species (Har- 
palidse and Heteromide) living under stones. The vegetable- 
feeding Chrysomelide, so eminently characteristic of the Tropics, 
are here almost entirely absent ;* I saw very few flies, butterflies, 
or bees, and no crickets or Orthoptera. In the pools of water J 
found but few aquatic beetles, and not any fresh-water shells: 
Succinea at first appears an exception ; but here it must be called 
a terrestrial shell, for it lives on the damp herbage far from 
water. lLand-shells could be procured only in the same alpine 
situations with the beetles. I have already contrasted the climate 
as well as the general appearance of Tierra del Fuego with that 
of Patagonia; and the difference is strongly exemplified in the 
entomology. I do not believe they have one species in common ; 
certainly the general character of the insects is widely different. 
If we turn from the land to the sea, we shall find the latter as 
abundantly stocked with living creatures as the former is poorly 
so. In all parts of the world a rocky and partially protected 
shore perhaps supports, in a given space, a greater number of 
* I believe I must except one alpine Haltica, and a single specimen of a 
Melasoma. Mr. Waterhouse informs me, that of the Harpalide there are 
eight or nine species—the forms of the greater number being very peculiar ; 
of Heteromera, four or five species; of Rhyncophora six or seven; and 
of the following families one species in each: Staphylinide, Elateride, 
Ccbrionide, Melolonthide. The species in the other orders are even fewer. 
In all the orders, the scarcity of the individuals is even more remarkable 
than that of the species. Most of the Coleoptera have been carefully de- 
scribed by Mr. Waterhouse in the Annals of Nat. Hist. 
