PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
'25 
is very difficult to capture ; in fact, is the most active crab I have ever met with. 
Along with it I met another species, which buries itself all but its mouth and claws 
in the sand, and most gallantly shows fight at the slightest approach. There is also 
a very curious Pinnotheres common. I have been more successful in the Crustacea 
than any other family, and hope to have some novelties to exhibit to members on 
my return homewards. I got several species of Echinoderms, and one that I 
am almost sure is identical with our Irish Echinus lividus—an extensive geographic 
range for a ‘ sea urchin.’ The sponges are in great abundance, and I have already 
some thirty species collected of this most lovely family. You know they are not 
in my line, but their beauty compelled me to gather them, and add them to my 
stores. It was not a good season of the year to collect reptiles or insects; a few 
butterflies and moths, some two or three dozen coleoptera, with a few ants and 
spiders, are all that has fallen to my lot in this line. When I reach my final des¬ 
tination, Callao, you shall hear from me again, when I shall write in full ail that 
happens to me on my voyage. I send specimens of several of the shells collected 
here, but not any of my good specimens, as I did not like risking them to the un¬ 
certainty of the waves and winds that roll and roar between this and Ireland-. 
“ Having found the great difficulty of writing when on shore, I think it prudent 
to begin this epistle where I happen to be at this present moment; but must pre¬ 
mise, that if you find my writing more than ordinarily illegible, you must recollect 
that I write in my cabin; and that, owing to a heavy gale, which has lasted now 
for upwards of forty-eight hours, the ships rides with close-reefed topsails. I have 
just spent some pleasant hours in assorting my collection of Australian mollusca. 
The majority of the shells I took with the animals in them, but some of them are 
semi fossil. While telling you in my former note of the curious sections of the coast 
which I every now and then came upon, I forgot to mention a fact that struck me 
at the time—viz., that in the strata of semi-fossilized shells, by far the greater 
number were bivalves, the univalves being few and far between. What can be the 
reason of this ? The shells all go safely up into store boxes, with the localities 
marked on the cover, so that I am sure you will have little difficulty in identifying 
them when they reach you. I got a splendid specimen of an Asterias on the beach, 
and dragged another out of the water on a fishing line, but most unfortunately it 
was quite insensible to the honours that I had intended for it; and, before I could 
seize it, it let go its hold on the line, and was lost to science for ever. The chief 
attraction of the voyage must, of course, be the birds; and, although I shall not 
trouble you with an account of every species that I have seen,'yet 1 may mention 
the Albatrosses. It is curious to observe how the various species are left behind as 
one approaches land—first we met with the common Hiomedea exulans ; then, as 
we approached Australia, we left this species behind, and fell in with another, about 
whose specific name I cannot ]|B certain; it is much smaller than exulans ; then, 
when leaving Australia, and making for South America, we met with another, of 
the dimensions of a young exulans, with green bill, legs of a flesh colour, wings and 
back a dark brown. The length of its wings from tip to tip measure seventy-six 
inches, and from extremity of neck to end of tail thirty inches. As we approached 
the American continent, what a change in the appearance of the birds : those that I 
had seen on the voyage and at Melbourne (you know I was not inland) were 
nothing to them in loveliness and brilliancy of colour, but their names I cannot tell 
until I get home. 
“ I now re-open this to say that I am at Callao ; and, as time is precious, must. 
tell you what I think about it as briefly as possible. I take it to be a bad place for 
shells, although well investigated by Mr. Cuming; to be a first-rate locality for 
Crustacea. With regard to the Echinodermata, I think it is also pretty fair; and, 
undoubtedly, it would be a first-rate place for an ornithologist. Just imagine seeing 
whole troops of pelicans, cormorants, divers, turkeys, not to mention gulls, gannets, 
terns, and innumerable smaller fry, all feeding together at the entrance of theharbour. 
Here one can see the pelicans pounce down head foremost to seize the unlucky fish— 
the gulls feeding by sweeping along the surface, the diver seeking and pursuing his 
prey far beneath the surface. Any one that could see these flocks of gulls would be 
convinced of the identity of Larus ridibundus and capistratus ; as the same differ¬ 
ence of plumage exists among these species here. I cannot find time to write 
