There is one vegetable production deserving notice from its importance
as an article of food to the Fuegians. It is a globular, bright-yellow
fungus, which grows in vast numbers on the beech-trees. When young it
is elastic and turgid, with
[picture]
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
222