830 
THE VOYAGE OE H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
Fish are very abundant and easily caught, as are also Rock Lobsters ( Palinurus 
frontalis), called “ Cray-fish ” by the early navigators, which are very large, and very 
good to eat. More than sixty were taken by means of a baited hoop-net put over the 
ship’s side at the anchorage, and hauled up at short intervals. 
Juan Fernandez is so small that from Selkirk’s Monument nearly the entire area of 
the island can be overlooked. Yet this tiny spot of land contains birds, land shells, 
trees, and ferns which occur nowhere else in the vast expanse of the universe, but here or 
in the neighbouring Mas-a-fuera. One could almost count the number of trees of the 
endemic Palm and estimate the number of pairs of the endemic Humming Bird existent 
at a bird for every bush. Two of the species of land birds, and all the twenty species 
of land shells of the island are endemic. 1 A small bat, possibly disturbed by the sound 
of the guns, was seen to fly past. 
The temperature at the monument at 11 a.m. was 65° F. Close to the farmhouse 
at the bay still remains a row of old caves dug out in the hillside by the buccaneers. All 
the rocks collected at Juan Fernandez were typical felspathic basalts. 
The Nemertea. — Professor Hubrecht of Utrecht, who is engaged on a Report on the 
Anatomy and Histology of the Nemertea, has supplied the following notes : — “ The Nemer- 
tea of the collection, although in several respects highly interesting, are very defective in 
outward appearance. The immersion in spirit has not only destroyed the natural colours — 
sometimes so beautiful — of all the specimens, but has at the same time reduced the size 
and altered the shape of the several individuals to a very uniform cylindrical or flattened 
pattern. Moreover, the habit of the Nemertea of often breaking themselves into pieces 
on being placed in any preserving fluid has reduced several other specimens to fragments. 
Fortunately the state of preservation of all these fragments is most satisfactory, and by 
applying the modern methods of staining and section cutting they can be successfully 
transferred into the more useful state of microscopic preparations, the whole animal being 
in this way both durably preserved and yet fit for delicate histological and anatomical 
investigations. Not one section need be lost, and the entire reconstruction of all the 
internal parts thus remains possible at any time. 
“ This method has already brought to light the presence amongst the Challenger 
Nemertea of a new genus, represented by two fragments, which fortunately contained 
all the more important organs. I propose to call it Carinina, because it is most nearly 
allied to the most important and primitively organized genus Carinella; it differs from 
this in certain important points, which will be treated at length in the forthcoming 
Memoir. Further, it is an unmistakable representative of the interesting group of the 
Palseonemertea. Both the specimens were dredged between Bermuda and Halifax 
(Stations 45 and 47), at depths of 1240 and 1340 fathoms. They measure only 
1 For an account of the land birds of Juan Fernandez, see an article by Dr. P. L. Sclater, Ibis, p. 178, 1871. 
