THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN.* Oua associations with Patagonia and Tierra
del Fuego are not wholly of an agreeable sort, but Dr. Cunningham has managed to give us a very pleasant book of notes on the natural history of these countries, and of the Strait and channels which separate them. This Strait, which should be called, not Magellan, but Magalhaens, after the celebrated Portuguese navigator of that name, has been recently surveyed by order of the Government. H.M.S. Nassau, employed for this purpose, was despatched in 1866, Dr. Cunningham, then a Professor at the Agricultural College of Cirencester, being selected as naturalist to the expedi- tion. We wish such attention to the interests of scientific progress were more characteristic of this country.
The Nassau is a steamer of between six and seven hundred tons. She was absent from England for three years from August, 1866, till the summer of 1869, and was engaged during most of the time in the survey of the Strait of Magellan and the western coast of Patagonia. One of her chief stations was in the Strait, near a Chilian colony and penal settlement, situated at a spot known as Sandy Point. Frequent trips were, however, made to other places, including the Falkland Islands, Rio Janeiro, Monte Video, and Valparaiso.
It is difficult to give a fair idea of such a diary of observation as the book before us, which is of necessity somewhat desultory in
• Notes on the Natural History of the Strait of Magellan. By R.. 0. Cunningham, ILE. Edinburgh. 1871.
style. We will, however, attempt the task by selecting a few of the most generally interesting facts, relating to plants, animals, and man, in the neighbourhood of the Strait, given in Dr. Cunningham's volume.
Our author narrates his discoveries of new plants and his iden- tification of old ones with the ardour of a collector, and in simple and intelligible language. He also gives us a fair notionof the aspect of the country, so far as vegetable life is concerned, pointing out the characteristics of the forest trees as well as of the more remarkable of the plants of lowlier growth. His occasional observations on the geographical range and migrations of individual species will also be read with interest. Among the trees we find two kinds of beech described as very abundant on the heights about the strait. Both species have distinctly serrated or toothed leaves of rather small size. Another tree, called winter's bark, allied to the Magnolias, is also abundant. It has large leaves like those of the cherry laurel, but silver-grey beneath, while its bark was found to possess valuable medicinal and condimental virtues by Captain Winter who accompanied Drake in his circumnavigation of the globe, during the years 1577-1580. Its fruit was described by Sir Richard Hawkins as carried in "clusters like a Haw- thorne, but that it is greene, each being of the bignesse of a Pepper-come, and every of them containing within four or five granes, twice as bigge as a musterd seed, which broken are white within, as the good Pepper, and bite much like it, but hotter. The bar ke of this Tree hath savour of all kinde of spices together, most comfortable to the Stomack." Among the vegetable curiosities of the Strait described by Dr. Cunningham, a strange plant, allied to mistletoe, was observed on the branches of many of the beech trees. In appearance it resembled a yellow- ish-coloured ball about as large as a man's head. This plant was destitute of leaves, and was formed of an immense number of slender intertwined stems. The seeds of this species and its allies adhere to the tree, on which they become parasitic by means of three viscid hairs belonging to the fruit ; these hairs enable them to remain on the trees until their seeds germinate and their roots penetrate the bark. On the Patagonian shore, close to the beach, two plants were observed in profusion which are worthy of note, by reason of their possession in common of the same powerful balsamic odour and viscid character, though one of the two plants is leguminous, and the other belongs to the widely separated natural order of the composita3. Should the aromatic resins of these two plants prove to be absolutely identical, this observation will probably lead to other discoveries of a similar kind, and we may thus obtain fresh light on the important subject of climate and soil, as modifying the processes and products of vegetable growth. Already some strange similarities exhibited by widely-differing plants growing under the same conditions have been noticed. Such, for instance, are the general glaucous colours and fleshy leaves of sea-shore vegetation, and the rusty-brown hues so characteristic of the flora of Western Australia.
Of beautiful flowering plants there is no lack in the Strait of Magellan, and notices of them will be found in most of the chap- ters of the book. Some choice ferns also are frequently met with, such as the Hymenophylla, or filmy ferns, from Western Pata- gonia (p. 314), and a curious little Grammitis (p. 321).
Our knowledge of the zoology of the Strait has been consider- ably enriched by the observations and discoveries of Dr. Cunning- ham. This, of course, is not the place for a description of the new genera and species of animals obtained, nor is, indeed, the study of his captures made during the expedition of the Nassau nearly concluded, yet we may extract a note or two concerning some of the more interesting animals described in the book before us. One of these is a species of skunk, rejoicing in the name:of Mephitis patagonica. A sailor shot a specimen, of which Dr. Cunningham "did not venture to preserve the skin, knowing that the operation would have involved his being regarded as a leper for sonic time." The horribly persistent odour of this pretty little animal is well known, and it is stated that it was distinctly perceptible on one occasion on shipboard no less than two miles from the coast of Monte Video. The steamer-duck is a common but very curious bird met with in the Strait and its vicinity. The young birds are capable of flight, adult individuals, however, do not fly, but use their short wings as a kind of paddle, scudding along the surface of the sea by their aid with extraordinary swift- ness. Specimens of many other animals were also obtained by Dr. Cunningham, not only in the strait, but in the various places visited by the ship during her three years'sruise, such as Monte Video, Rio de Janeiro, and the Falkland Islands. A large number of new species and a goodly series of type specimens, necessi- tating the erection of new genera, were secured, and are now being examined and described by the author and by the other zoologists into whose hands they have been entrusted. Some of the marine ani- mals of comparatively low organization, obtained by dredging or the towing-net, were also new to science. Many of them presented great richness of colouring and peculiarities of structure or form. There is one thing, however, which strikes the reader of Dr. Cunningham's pages. One cannot help thinking what a vast col- lection of interesting animals would have been brought home if only the animals had been less agile and their pursuer more so. On page after page we find such expressions as the following :- "A species of Cicindela was rather plentiful, but no specimens were obtained, owing to the activity of the insect" (p. 22). Again (p. 27), we read of "several large and exquisitely-tinted specimens of the Portuguese man-of-war, Physalia, which I attempted unsuccess- fully to capture." If a shark-hook was baited with a lump of salt pork, the bait was insufficiently secured, and instead of the naturalist getting the shark, the shark enjoyed a good meal (p. 28). In one spot lizards abounded, but "they eluded capture by the extreme rapidity of their motion" (p. 40) ; and "crabs of the genus Grapsus were seen but none taken, as they escaped into clefts of the rock." Another time the author met with a beauti- ful bright green lizard "but did not succeed in catching any." Once he almost trod on a brown snake, but "did not succeed in securing it." We might cite scores of similar instances. It is doubtless very honest of Dr. Cunningham to tell us of all his failures in crab, and beetle, and lizard-catching, but we thought that a skillful collector was always a match for any little creature, how- ever stealthy, or swift, or unexpected its movements, and that by watching its habits, or by contriving special apparatus for its cap- ture, he could outmanceuvre it. Perhaps, however, if the author had succeeded in securing every animal he pursued, no ingenuity would have enabled him to stow away his treasures in the small cabin allotted to him, and yet to leave room for himself. As it was, he seems to have had a good deal of trouble during stormy weather in preventing the animals preserved in spirit, the plants in paper, the dried skins, the eggs, with various bones and skulls, from mingling in hopeless confusion or tumbling about his ears, and ousting him altogether from his narrow habitation.
We have a few interesting particulars, scattered through the volume, of the inhabitants of the lands bordering the Strait of Magellan. Our author is not able to say much for the Fuegians, indeed one of the ship's surveying parties had some trouble with a party of natives at the beginning of their enterprise. They wounded one of the officers with an arrow : we learn that the arrowheads are beautifully fashioned triangular pieces of chipped flint and rock-crystal. They, or some of their tribes at least, live by the chase of the guanaco or alpaca, but do not disdain shell-fish. The skin of the guanaco furnishes them with their only dress, when dressed at all. It is arranged as a kind of mantle worn with the hair turned outside and not reversed, as is the case with the Patagonians ; some are clothed with seal and otter skins. They have a curious way of always keeping a fire of green wood in the bottom of their canoes, the fire being laid upon a mass of clay. The canoes are of bark-strips fastened with rushes. Tobacco is in great demand, and on one occasion a young Fuegian readily divested himself of his only garment, taking in exchange a small quantity of the favourite weed and a knife. A less profitable offer was made, on another occasion, by a Fuegian lady, who was desirous of bartering her bone necklace for the gold watch guard of one of the ship's officers. Though Dr. Cunning- ham records with evident interest the characteristics of the living inhabitants of the country, great indeed is his delight when he comes across a Fuegian skull (p. 199). Concerning the Patagonians, who inhabit the country to the north of the Strait, we have also a few particulars (pp. 138, 150, 161), while a Patagonian cranium, which the author found, is described on page 193 ; it showed signs of artificial distortion, probably caused by the early application of a frontal bandage. The Patagonians were much more agreeable in behaviour than the Fuegians. On one occasion they got up a guanaco hunt, and provided horses to mount a party from the Nassau.
Now and then, during the quiet course of his narrative, Dr. Cunningham gives us some amusing pieces of personal experience and some comic incidents of travel. One of the best of such passages (p. 72) describes a trait of the guanacos, or Patagonian alpacas. A number of these animals, kept in an enclosure at Sandy Point, near the Governor's house, were being teased by a party of Yankee sailors. "Gradually the guanacos approached nearer and nearer the paling which separated them from their assailants, at the same time going through a process of churning up the saliva in their mouths, till, all preparations being completed, a volley was projected to a distance of two or three feet, after the fashion of a hot-house squirt, right in the faces of the enemy." Considering the nationality of the enemy, we really must credit the guanacos with a high degree of intelligence for having hit upon so appropriate a retributive punishment.
Before taking leave of the author of the volume under review,. we would venture to suggest to him that there are some points in which his book could be readily improved. The year and month of the year should be given on each page, for as the narrative is. now printed, it is a very irksome and difficult task to follow the course of the seasons, and to connect the recorded phenomena of animal and vegetable life therewith. The illustrations, too, are of rather unequal merit, and do not illustrate the author's most interesting discoveries or observations. All of them should be numbered ; perhaps some, such as the merry-thought of the
which explains no point in the text, might advantageously be omitted. The scientific names of animals and plants are generally recorded with accuracy, though an occasional slip, such as Phlceum for Phleum, may be found. A few awkward expres- sions should be revised ; for instance, the phrase "For various of these details" (p. 41) is scarcely an approved one.
Students of natural history may take up once and again this. narrative of a three years' cruise in the Strait of Magellan, and always find something fresh and instructive. The simple and truthful style of the descriptive portions of the chronicle will com- mend them to the general reader, to whom they will furnish many an agreeable half-hour's reading. We should add that an excel- lent map of the Strait, drawn by Mr. Keith Johnston, is prefixed to the volume.
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