4 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



and grace it possessed, it might not seem inoppor- 

 tune at the present moment to give a rapid sketch, 

 from the field naturalist's point of view, of the great 

 plain, as it existed before the agencies introduced 

 by European colonists had done their work, and as 

 it still exists in its remoter parts. 



The humid, grassy, pampean country extends, 

 roughly speaking, half-way from the Atlantic Ocean 

 and the Plata and Parana rivers to the Andes, and 

 passes gradually into the " Monte Formation," or 

 sterile pampa — a sandy, more or less barren district, 

 producing a dry, harsh, ligneous vegetation, princi- 

 pally thorny bushes and low trees, of which the 

 chanar (Gurliaca decorticans) is the most common ; 

 hence the name of " Chaiiar-steppe " used by some 

 writers : and this formation extends southwards 

 down into Patagonia. Scientists have not yet been 

 able to explain why the pampas, with a humid 

 climate, and a soil exceedingly rich, have produced 

 nothing but grass, while the dry, sterile territories 

 on their north, west, and south borders have an 

 arborescent vegetation. Darwin's conjecture that 

 the extreme violence of the pampero, or south-west 

 wind, prevented trees from growing, is now proved 

 to have been ill-founded since the introduction of 

 the Eucalyptus globulus ; for this noble tree attains 

 to an extraordinary height on the pampas, and 

 exhibits there a luxuriance of foliage never seen in 

 Australia. 



To this level area — my " parish of Selborne," or, 

 at all events, a goodly portion of it — with the sea 

 on one hand, and on the other the practically 

 infinite expanse of grassy desert — another sea, not 



