Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

584 ST. HELENA. July, 1836. indeed I believe all the birds have been introduced within late years. Partridges and pheasants are tolerably abundant the island is much too EngUsh, not to be subject to strict game-lavrs. I was told of a more unjust sacrifice to such or- dinances, than I ever heard of even in England. The poor people formerly used to burn a plant, which grows on the coast rocks, and export soda ; but a peremptory order came out prohibiting this practice, and giving as a reason, that the partridges would have nowhere to build ! In my walks, I passed more than once over the grassy plain, bounded by deep valleys, on which Longwood stands. Viewed from a short distance, it appears like a respectable gentleman's country-seat. In front there are a few cultivated fields, and beyond them, the hill of coloured rocks called the Flagstaff", on decayed vegetable matter) and two species of Phanseus, common in such situations. On the opposite side of the Cordillera in Chiloe, another species of this genus is exceedingly abundant, and it buries the dung of cattle in large earthen balls beneath the ground. There is reason to believe that the genus Phanseus, before the introduction of cattle acted as scavengers to man. In Great Britain those beetles, which find support in the matter, which has already contributed towards the life of other and larger animals, are so numerous, that I suppose there are at least one hundred different kinds. Considering this, and observing what a quantity of food is thus lost on the plains of La Plata, I imagined I saw an instance where man had disturbed that chain, by which so many animals are linked together in their native country. To this view, however. Van Diemen's Land offers an exception (in the same manner as St. Helena does in a much lesser degree), for I found there four species of On- thophagus, two of Aphodius, and one of a third genus, very abundant under the dung of cows ; yet these latter animals had then been introduced only thirty-three years. Previously to that time, the Kangaroo and some other small animals were the only quadrupeds ; and their dung is of a very different quality from that of their successors introduced by man. In England the greater number of stercovorous beetles are confined in their appetites ; that is, they do not depend indifferently on any quadru- ped for the means of subsistence. The change, therefore, in habits, which must have taken place in Van Diemen's Land, is the more remarkable. I am indebted to the Rev. F. W. Hope, who, I hope, will permit me to call him my master in Entomology, for information respecting the fore- going, and other insects.