302 TiERRA DEL FUEGO. June^, 1834. 



damp and cold limit not one occurs. That the climate 

 would not have suited some of the orders^ such as lizards, 

 might have been foreseen; but with respect to frogs, this 

 was not so obvious. 



Coleopterous insects occur in very small numbers. Until 

 I had endeavoured by every means to find them, I could not 

 believe, that a country as large as Scotland, covered with 

 vegetable productions, and with a variety of stations, would 

 ever have been so unproductive. The greater part of my small 

 collection consists of alpine insects {Harpalidcd and Hetero- 

 mera) found beneath stones, above the limit of the forest. 

 Lower down, with the exception of some few Curculiones 

 scarcely any could be found. The Chrysomelidse, which are 

 so pre-eminently characteristic of the Tropics, are here almost 

 entirely absent.* This must depend on the climate ; for the 

 quantity of vegetable matter is superfluously great. In the 

 hottest part of the summer the mean of the maxima for 

 thirty-seven successive days was 55°, and the thermometer 

 on some of the days rose to 60° ; yet there were no orthop- 

 tera, very few diptera, lepidoptera, or hymenoptera. In the 

 pools of water I 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 species, for it lives on 

 the damp herbage far from water. Land shells could only 

 be procured in the same situations with the alpine 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 believe I must except one alpine Haltica, and a single specimen of 

 a Melasoma. Mr. Waterhouse, who was good enough to look at my col- 

 lection from this place, tells me, that of the HarpaHdse there are eight or 

 nine species, — the forms of the greater number being very peculiar ; of 

 Heteromera, four or five species ; of Riiyncophora six or seven ; and of 

 the following families one species in each : Staphylinidse, Elateridse, Ce- 

 brionidse, Melolonthidae The species in the other orders, were even 

 fewer. In all the orders, the scarcity of the individuals was even more 

 remarkable than that of the species. 



