THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 



SIS 



peculiar form;* with it I found six other kinds; and in 

 another spot an eighth species. It is remarkable that none 

 of them are now found living. Their extinction has prob- 

 ably been caused by the entire destruction of the woods, and 

 the consequent loss of food and shelter, which occurred 

 during the early part of the last century. 



The history of the changes, which the elevated plains of 

 Longwood and Deadwood have undergone, as given in Gen- 

 eral Beatson's account of the island, is extremely curious. 

 Both plains, it is said in former times were covered with 

 wood, and were therefore called the Great Wood. So late 

 as the year 1716 there were many trees, but in 1724 the old 

 trees had mostly fallen; and as goats and hogs had been 

 suffered to range about, all the young trees had been killed. 

 It appears also from the official records, that the trees were 

 unexpectedly, some years afterwards, succeeded by a wire 

 grass which spread over the whole surface. 3 General Beat- 

 son adds that now this plain " is covered with fine sward, and 

 is become the finest piece of pasture on the island." The 

 extent of surface, probably covered by wood at a former 

 period, is estimated at no less than two thousand acres; at 

 the present day scarcely a single tree can be found there. It 

 is also said that in 1709 there were quantities of dead trees 

 in Sandy Bay; this place is now so utterly desert, that noth- 

 ing but so well attested an account could have made me believe 

 that they could ever have grown there. The fact, that the 

 goats and hogs destroyed all the young trees as they sprang 

 up, and that in the course of time the old ones, which were 

 safe from their attacks, perished from age, seems clearly 

 made out. Goats were introduced in the year 1502; eighty- 

 six years afterwards, in the time of Cavendish, it is known 

 that they were exceedingly numerous. More than a century 

 afterwards, in 1731, when the evil was complete and irre- 

 trievable, an order was issued that all stray animals should 

 be destroyed. It is very interesting thus to find, that the 

 arrival of animals at St. Helena in 1501, did not change the 

 whole aspect of the island, until a period of two hundred 



2 It deserves notice, that all the many specimens of this shell found by 

 me m one spot, differ as a marked variety, from another set of specimens 

 procured from a different spot. 



3 Beatson's St. Helena. Introductory chapter, p. 4. 



