122 TASMANIA AND THE ANTAKCTIC 
father, and received a warm welcome. Twice the naturalist 
came on board the Erehus and spent all day looking over the 
Southern collections. * He is delighted,' Hooker writes to his 
father on July 18, * with my drawings of sea animals, of wliich 
many are entirely new ; I must, however, redouble my efforts 
on that head, little as I care about them, as I hear that the 
Americans have done much during their voyage to them, and 
that, McLeay says, is the only thing they have done.' 
On the way to Sydney * the tow-net produced some new 
and good things for the pencil, and we actually brought up 
several live animals from a depth of 400 fathoms ! Lat. 33° 32' 
and long. 167° 40', but no trace of vegetable life.' 
The presence of living corals at such great depths was 
pronounced very remarkable.^ Some of the shells Captain 
King recognised as South American, especially the small yellow 
bivalve from the Macrocystis (the seaweed found floating far 
to the south, thousands of miles from the American coast). 
Among the Auckland Island sea animals, he marked * a 
Galathea very like an Arctic one,' while ' a curious animal 
from Kerguelen's Land approaches more nearly to the fossil 
Trilobites than any hitherto discovered, the antennae being 
apparently wanting, and the eyes are as in the fossil 
Entomodraca.' 
McLeay was full of stories of Dr. Buckland and his blue 
bag ; but only one is recorded in the Journal. * Dr. Buckland 
could tell the age of a skull by the taste, which he proved by 
producing that of an old woman buried a few years before, 
which tasted greasy, &c. &c.' 
A long visit to McLeay 's garden proved it to be a botanist's 
paradise. * My surprise was unbounded at the natm-al beauties 
of the spot, the inimitable taste with which the grounds were 
laid out, and the number and rarity of the plants which were 
collected together.' 
1 On Sept. 1, 1845, Hooker writes to Ross : ' I read in the Ann. Nat. Hist. 
a notice of Goodsir's labours with Sir J. Franklin. He seems to be doing 
remarkably -well, as the notice said that 300 fms. was greater dredgings 
than had ever been obtained before. I wrote an answer to the Editor, saving 
we had repeatedly dredged at that and at greater depths, giving a few general 
remarks as proofs.' . 
