A Smooth Surface; But When Mature It Shrinks, Becomes Tougher,
And Has Its Entire Surface Deeply Pitted Or Honey-Combed,
As Represented In The Accompanying Woodcut.
This fungus
belongs to a new and curious genus, [4] I found a second
species on another species of beech in Chile:
And Dr. Hooker
informs me, that just lately a third species has been discovered
on a third species of beech in Van Diernan's Land. How singular
is this relationship between parasitical fungi and the trees
on which they grow, in distant parts of the world! In Tierra
del Fuego the fungus in its tough and mature state is collected
in large quantities by the women and children, and is eaten
un-cooked. It has a mucilaginous, slightly sweet taste, with
a faint smell like that of a mushroom. With the exception of
a few berries, chiefly of a dwarf arbutus, the natives eat
no vegetable food besides this fungus. In New Zealand,
before the introduction of the potato, the roots of the fern
were largely consumed; at the present time, I believe, Tierra
del Fuego is the only country in the world where a cryptogamic
plant affords a staple article of food.
The zoology of Tierra del Fuego, as might have been
expected from the nature of its climate and vegetation, is
very poor. Of mammalia, besides whales and seals, there is
one bat, a kind of mouse (Reithrodon chinchilloides), two
true mice, a ctenomys allied to or identical with the tucutuco,
two foxes (Canis Magellanicus and C. Azarae), a sea-otter,
the guanaco, and a deer. Most of these animals inhabit only
the drier eastern parts of the country; and the deer has never
been seen south of the Strait of Magellan. Observing the
general correspondence of the cliffs of soft sandstone, mud,
and shingle, on the opposite sides of the Strait, and on some
intervening islands, one is strongly tempted to believe that the
land was once joined, and thus allowed animals so delicate
and helpless as the tucutuco and Reithrodon to pass over.
The correspondence of the cliffs is far from proving any
junction; because such cliffs generally are formed by the
intersection of sloping deposits, which, before the elevation
of the land, had been accumulated near the then existing
shores. It is, however, a remarkable coincidence, that in the
two large islands cut off by the Beagle Channel from the
rest of Tierra del Fuego, one has cliffs composed of matter
that may be called stratified alluvium, which front similar
ones on the opposite side of the channel, - while the other is
exclusively bordered by old crystalline rocks: in the former,
called Navarin Island, both foxes and guanacos occur; but in
the latter, Hoste Island, although similar in every respect,
and only separated by a channel a little more than half a mile
wide, I have the word of Jemmy Button for saying that
neither of these animals are found.
The gloomy woods are inhabited by few birds:
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