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The Voyage Of The Beagle

C >> Charles Darwin >> The Voyage Of The Beagle




The plain, at the distance of a few miles from the coast, belongs
to the great Pampean formation, which consists in part of a
reddish clay, and in part of a highly calcareous marly rock.
Nearer the coast there are some plains formed from the wreck of
the upper plain, and from mud, gravel, and sand thrown up by the
sea during the slow elevation of the land, of which elevation we
have evidence in upraised beds of recent shells, and in rounded
pebbles of pumice scattered over the country. At Punta Alta we
have a section of one of these later-formed little plains, which
is highly interesting from the number and extraordinary character
of the remains of gigantic land-animals embedded in it. These
have been fully described by Professor Owen, in the "Zoology of
the Voyage of the 'Beagle,'" and are deposited in the College of
Surgeons. I will here give only a brief outline of their nature.

First, parts of three heads and other bones of the Megatherium,
the huge dimensions of which are expressed by its name. Secondly,
the Megalonyx, a great allied animal. Thirdly, the
Scelidotherium, also an allied animal, of which I obtained a
nearly perfect skeleton. It must have been as large as a
rhinoceros: in the structure of its head it comes, according to
Mr. Owen, nearest to the Cape Ant-eater, but in some other
respects it approaches to the armadilloes. Fourthly, the Mylodon
Darwinii, a closely related genus of little inferior size.
Fifthly, another gigantic edental quadruped. Sixthly, a large
animal, with an osseous coat in compartments, very like that of
an armadillo. Seventhly, an extinct kind of horse, to which I
shall have again to refer. Eighthly, a tooth of a Pachydermatous
animal, probably the same with the Macrauchenia, a huge beast
with a long neck like a camel, which I shall also refer to again.
Lastly, the Toxodon, perhaps one of the strangest animals ever
discovered: in size it equalled an elephant or megatherium, but
the structure of its teeth, as Mr. Owen states, proves
indisputably that it was intimately related to the Gnawers, the
order which, at the present day, includes most of the smallest
quadrupeds: in many details it is allied to the Pachydermata:
judging from the position of its eyes, ears, and nostrils, it was
probably aquatic, like the Dugong and Manatee, to which it is
also allied. How wonderfully are the different Orders, at the
present time so well separated, blended together in different
points of the structure of the Toxodon!

The remains of these nine great quadrupeds and many detached
bones were found embedded on the beach, within the space of about
200 yards square. It is a remarkable circumstance that so many
different species should be found together; and it proves how
numerous in kind the ancient inhabitants of this country must
have been. At the distance of about thirty miles from Punta Alta,
in a cliff of red earth, I found several fragments of bones, some
of large size. Among them were the teeth of a gnawer, equalling
in size and closely resembling those of the Capybara, whose
habits have been described; and therefore, probably, an aquatic
animal. There was also part of the head of a Ctenomys; the
species being different from the Tucutuco, but with a close
general resemblance. The red earth, like that of the Pampas, in
which these remains were embedded, contains, according to
Professor Ehrenberg, eight fresh-water and one salt-water
infusorial animalcule; therefore, probably, it was an estuary
deposit.

The remains at Punta Alta were embedded in stratified gravel and
reddish mud, just such as the sea might now wash up on a shallow
bank. They were associated with twenty-three species of shells,
of which thirteen are recent and four others very closely related
to recent forms. (5/1. Since this was written, M. Alcide
d'Orbigny has examined these shells, and pronounces them all to
be recent.) From the bones of the Scelidotherium, including even
the kneecap, being entombed in their proper relative positions,
and from the osseous armour of the great armadillo-like animal
being so well preserved, together with the bones of one of its
legs, we may feel assured that these remains were fresh and
united by their ligaments, when deposited in the gravel together
with the shells. (5/2. M. Aug. Bravard has described, in a
Spanish work "Observaciones Geologicas" 1857, this district, and
he believes that the bones of the extinct mammals were washed out
of the underlying Pampean deposit, and subsequently became
embedded with the still existing shells; but I am not convinced
by his remarks. M. Bravard believes that the whole enormous
Pampean deposit is a sub-aerial formation, like sand-dunes: this
seems to me to be an untenable doctrine.) Hence we have good
evidence that the above enumerated gigantic quadrupeds, more
different from those of the present day than the oldest of the
tertiary quadrupeds of Europe, lived whilst the sea was peopled
with most of its present inhabitants; and we have confirmed that
remarkable law so often insisted on by Mr. Lyell, namely, that
the "longevity of the species in the mammalia is upon the whole
inferior to that of the testacea." (5/3. "Principles of Geology"
volume 4 page 40.)

The great size of the bones of the Megatheroid animals, including
the Megatherium, Megalonyx, Scelidotherium, and Mylodon, is truly
wonderful. The habits of life of these animals were a complete
puzzle to naturalists, until Professor Owen solved the problem
with remarkable ingenuity. (5/4. This theory was first developed
in the "Zoology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle,'" and subsequently
in Professor Owen's "Memoir on Mylodon robustus.") The teeth
indicate, by their simple structure, that these Megatheroid
animals lived on vegetable food, and probably on the leaves and
small twigs of trees; their ponderous forms and great strong
curved claws seem so little adapted for locomotion, that some
eminent naturalists have actually believed that, like the sloths,
to which they are intimately related, they subsisted by climbing
back downwards on trees, and feeding on the leaves. It was a
bold, not to say preposterous, idea to conceive even antediluvian
trees, with branches strong enough to bear animals as large as
elephants. Professor Owen, with far more probability, believes
that, instead of climbing on the trees, they pulled the branches
down to them, and tore up the smaller ones by the roots, and so
fed on the leaves. The colossal breadth and weight of their
hinder quarters, which can hardly be imagined without having been
seen, become, on this view, of obvious service, instead of being
an encumbrance: their apparent clumsiness disappears. With their
great tails and their huge heels firmly fixed like a tripod on
the ground, they could freely exert the full force of their most
powerful arms and great claws. Strongly rooted, indeed, must that
tree have been, which could have resisted such force! The
Mylodon, moreover, was furnished with a long extensile tongue
like that of the giraffe, which, by one of those beautiful
provisions of nature, thus reaches with the aid of its long neck
its leafy food. I may remark, that in Abyssinia the elephant,
according to Bruce, when it cannot reach with its proboscis the
branches, deeply scores with its tusks the trunk of the tree, up
and down and all round, till it is sufficiently weakened to be
broken down.

The beds including the above fossil remains stand only from
fifteen to twenty feet above the level of high water; and hence
the elevation of the land has been small (without there has been
an intercalated period of subsidence, of which we have no
evidence) since the great quadrupeds wandered over the
surrounding plains; and the external features of the country must
then have been very nearly the same as now. What, it may
naturally be asked, was the character of the vegetation at that
period; was the country as wretchedly sterile as it now is? As so
many of the co-embedded shells are the same with those now living
in the bay, I was at first inclined to think that the former
vegetation was probably similar to the existing one; but this
would have been an erroneous inference, for some of these same
shells live on the luxuriant coast of Brazil; and generally, the
characters of the inhabitants of the sea are useless as guides to
judge of those on the land. Nevertheless, from the following
considerations, I do not believe that the simple fact of many
gigantic quadrupeds having lived on the plains round Bahia
Blanca, is any sure guide that they formerly were clothed with a
luxuriant vegetation: I have no doubt that the sterile country a
little southward, near the Rio Negro, with its scattered thorny
trees, would support many and large quadrupeds.

That large animals require a luxuriant vegetation, has been a
general assumption which has passed from one work to another; but
I do not hesitate to say that it is completely false, and that it
has vitiated the reasoning of geologists on some points of great
interest in the ancient history of the world. The prejudice has
probably been derived from India, and the Indian islands, where
troops of elephants, noble forests, and impenetrable jungles, are
associated together in every one's mind. If, however, we refer to
any work of travels through the southern parts of Africa, we
shall find allusions in almost every page either to the desert
character of the country, or to the numbers of large animals
inhabiting it. The same thing is rendered evident by the many
engravings which have been published of various parts of the
interior. When the "Beagle" was at Cape Town, I made an excursion
of some days' length into the country, which at least was
sufficient to render that which I had read more fully
intelligible.

Dr. Andrew Smith, who, at the head of his adventurous party, has
lately succeeded in passing the Tropic of Capricorn, informs me
that, taking into consideration the whole of the southern part of
Africa, there can be no doubt of its being a sterile country. On
the southern and south-eastern coasts there are some fine
forests, but with these exceptions, the traveller may pass for
days together through open plains, covered by a poor and scanty
vegetation. It is difficult to convey any accurate idea of
degrees of comparative fertility; but it may be safely said that
the amount of vegetation supported at any one time by Great
Britain, exceeds, perhaps even tenfold, the quantity on an equal
area in the interior parts of Southern Africa. (5/5. I mean by
this to exclude the total amount which may have been successively
produced and consumed during a given period.) The fact that
bullock-waggons can travel in any direction, excepting near the
coast, without more than occasionally half an hour's delay in
cutting down bushes, gives, perhaps, a more definite notion of
the scantiness of the vegetation. Now, if we look to the animals
inhabiting these wide plains, we shall find their numbers
extraordinarily great, and their bulk immense. We must enumerate
the elephant, three species of rhinoceros, and probably,
according to Dr. Smith, two others, the hippopotamus, the
giraffe, the bos caffer--as large as a full-grown bull, and the
elan--but little less, two zebras, and the quaccha, two gnus, and
several antelopes even larger than these latter animals. It may
be supposed that although the species are numerous, the
individuals of each kind are few. By the kindness of Dr. Smith, I
am enabled to show that the case is very different. He informs
me, that in latitude 24 degrees, in one day's march with the
bullock-waggons, he saw, without wandering to any great distance
on either side, between one hundred and one hundred and fifty
rhinoceroses, which belonged to three species: the same day he
saw several herds of giraffes, amounting together to nearly a
hundred; and that, although no elephant was observed, yet they
are found in this district. At the distance of a little more than
one hour's march from their place of encampment on the previous
night, his party actually killed at one spot eight
hippopotamuses, and saw many more. In this same river there were
likewise crocodiles. Of course it was a case quite extraordinary,
to see so many great animals crowded together, but it evidently
proves that they must exist in great numbers. Dr. Smith describes
the country passed through that day, as "being thinly covered
with grass, and bushes about four feet high, and still more
thinly with mimosa-trees." The waggons were not prevented
travelling in a nearly straight line.

Besides these large animals, every one the least acquainted with
the natural history of the Cape has read of the herds of
antelopes, which can be compared only with the flocks of
migratory birds. The numbers indeed of the lion, panther, and
hyaena, and the multitude of birds of prey, plainly speak of the
abundance of the smaller quadrupeds: one evening seven lions were
counted at the same time prowling round Dr. Smith's encampment.
As this able naturalist remarked to me, the carnage each day in
Southern Africa must indeed be terrific! I confess it is truly
surprising how such a number of animals can find support in a
country producing so little food. The larger quadrupeds no doubt
roam over wide tracts in search of it; and their food chiefly
consists of underwood, which probably contains much nutriment in
a small bulk. Dr. Smith also informs me that the vegetation has a
rapid growth; no sooner is a part consumed, than its place is
supplied by a fresh stock. There can be no doubt, however, that
our ideas respecting the apparent amount of food necessary for
the support of large quadrupeds are much exaggerated: it should
have been remembered that the camel, an animal of no mean bulk,
has always been considered as the emblem of the desert.

The belief that where large quadrupeds exist, the vegetation must
necessarily be luxuriant, is the more remarkable, because the
converse is far from true. Mr. Burchell observed to me that when
entering Brazil, nothing struck him more forcibly than the
splendour of the South American vegetation contrasted with that
of South Africa, together with the absence of all large
quadrupeds. In his "Travels," he has suggested that the
comparison of the respective weights (if there were sufficient
data) of an equal number of the largest herbivorous quadrupeds of
each country would be extremely curious. (5/6. "Travels in the
Interior of South Africa" volume 2 page 207.) If we take on the
one side, the elephant, hippopotamus, giraffe, bos caffer, elan,
certainly three, and probably five species of rhinoceros; and on
the American side, two tapirs, the guanaco, three deer, the
vicuna, peccari, capybara (after which we must choose from the
monkeys to complete the number), and then place these two groups
alongside each other, it is not easy to conceive ranks more
disproportionate in size. (5/7. The elephant which was killed at
Exeter Change was estimated (being partly weighed) at five tons
and a half. The elephant actress, as I was informed, weighed one
ton less; so that we may take five as the average of a full-grown
elephant. I was told at the Surry Gardens, that a hippopotamus
which was sent to England cut up into pieces was estimated at
three tons and a half; we will call it three. From these premises
we may give three tons and a half to each of the five
rhinoceroses; perhaps a ton to the giraffe, and half to the bos
caffer as well as to the elan (a large ox weighs from 1200 to
1500 pounds). This will give an average (from the above
estimates) of 2.7 of a ton for the ten largest herbivorous
animals of Southern Africa. In South America, allowing 1200
pounds for the two tapirs together, 550 for the guanaco and
vicuna, 500 for three deer, 300 for the capybara, peccari, and a
monkey, we shall have an average of 250 pounds, which I believe
is overstating the result. The ratio will therefore be as 6048 to
250, or 24 to 1, for the ten largest animals from the two
continents.) After the above facts, we are compelled to conclude,
against anterior probability, that among the mammalia there
exists no close relation between the BULK of the species and the
QUANTITY of the vegetation in the countries which they inhabit.
(5/8. If we suppose the case of the discovery of a skeleton of a
Greenland whale in a fossil state, not a single cetaceous animal
being known to exist, what naturalist would have ventured
conjecture on the possibility of a carcass so gigantic being
supported on the minute crustacea and mollusca living in the
frozen seas of the extreme North?)

With regard to the number of large quadrupeds, there certainly
exists no quarter of the globe which will bear comparison with
Southern Africa. After the different statements which have been
given, the extremely desert character of that region will not be
disputed. In the European division of the world, we must look
back to the tertiary epochs, to find a condition of things among
the mammalia, resembling that now existing at the Cape of Good
Hope. Those tertiary epochs, which we are apt to consider as
abounding to an astonishing degree with large animals, because we
find the remains of many ages accumulated at certain spots, could
hardly boast of more large quadrupeds than Southern Africa does
at present. If we speculate on the condition of the vegetation
during those epochs, we are at least bound so far to consider
existing analogies, as not to urge as absolutely necessary a
luxuriant vegetation, when we see a state of things so totally
different at the Cape of Good Hope.

We know that the extreme regions of North America many degrees
beyond the limit where the ground at the depth of a few feet
remains perpetually congealed, are covered by forests of large
and tall trees. (5/9. See "Zoological Remarks to Captain Back's
Expedition" by Dr. Richardson. He says, "The subsoil north of
latitude 56 degrees is perpetually frozen, the thaw on the coast
not penetrating above three feet, and at Bear Lake, in latitude
64 degrees, not more than twenty inches. The frozen substratum
does not of itself destroy vegetation, for forests flourish on
the surface, at a distance from the coast.") In a like manner, in
Siberia, we have woods of birch, fir, aspen, and larch, growing
in a latitude (64 degrees) where the mean temperature of the air
falls below the freezing point, and where the earth is so
completely frozen, that the carcass of an animal embedded in it
is perfectly preserved. (5/10. See Humboldt "Fragmens Asiatiques"
page 386: Barton's "Geography of Plants"; and Malte Brun. In the
latter work it is said that the limit of the growth of trees in
Siberia may be drawn under the parallel of 70 degrees.) With
these facts we must grant, as far as QUANTITY ALONE of vegetation
is concerned, that the great quadrupeds of the later tertiary
epochs might, in most parts of Northern Europe and Asia, have
lived on the spots where their remains are now found. I do not
here speak of the KIND of vegetation necessary for their support;
because, as there is evidence of physical changes, and as the
animals have become extinct, so may we suppose that the species
of plants have likewise been changed.

These remarks, I may be permitted to add, directly bear on the
case of the Siberian animals preserved in ice. The firm
conviction of the necessity of a vegetation possessing a
character of tropical luxuriance, to support such large animals,
and the impossibility of reconciling this with the proximity of
perpetual congelation, was one chief cause of the several
theories of sudden revolutions of climate, and of overwhelming
catastrophes, which were invented to account for their
entombment. I am far from supposing that the climate has not
changed since the period when those animals lived, which now lie
buried in the ice. At present I only wish to show, that as far as
QUANTITY of food ALONE is concerned, the ancient rhinoceroses
might have roamed over the STEPPES of central Siberia (the
northern parts probably being under water) even in their present
condition, as well as the living rhinoceroses and elephants over
the KARROS of Southern Africa.

I will now give an account of the habits of some of the more
interesting birds which are common on the wild plains of Northern
Patagonia: and first for the largest, or South American ostrich.
The ordinary habits of the ostrich are familiar to every one.
They live on vegetable matter, such as roots and grass; but at
Bahia Blanca I have repeatedly seen three or four come down at
low water to the extensive mudbanks which are then dry, for the
sake, as the Gauchos say, of feeding on small fish. Although the
ostrich in its habits is so shy, wary, and solitary, and although
so fleet in its pace, it is caught without much difficulty by the
Indian or Gaucho armed with the bolas. When several horsemen
appear in a semicircle, it becomes confounded, and does not know
which way to escape. They generally prefer running against the
wind; yet at the first start they expand their wings, and like a
vessel make all sail. On one fine hot day I saw several ostriches
enter a bed of tall rushes, where they squatted concealed, till
quite closely approached. It is not generally known that
ostriches readily take to the water. Mr. King informs me that at
the Bay of San Blas, and at Port Valdes in Patagonia, he saw
these birds swimming several times from island to island. They
ran into the water both when driven down to a point, and likewise
of their own accord when not frightened: the distance crossed was
about two hundred yards. When swimming, very little of their
bodies appear above water; their necks are extended a little
forward, and their progress is slow. On two occasions I saw some
ostriches swimming across the Santa Cruz river, where its course
was about four hundred yards wide, and the stream rapid. Captain
Sturt, when descending the Murrumbidgee, in Australia, saw two
emus in the act of swimming. (5/11. Sturt's Travels, volume 2
page 74.)

The inhabitants of the country readily distinguish, even at a
distance, the cock bird from the hen. The former is larger and
darker-coloured, and has a bigger head. (5/12. A Gucho assured me
that he had once seen a snow-white or Albino variety, and that it
was a most beautiful bird.) The ostrich, I believe the cock,
emits a singular, deep-toned, hissing note: when first I heard
it, standing in the midst of some sand-hillocks, I thought it was
made by some wild beast, for it is a sound that one cannot tell
whence it comes, or from how far distant. When we were at Bahia
Blanca in the months of September and October, the eggs, in
extraordinary numbers, were found all over the country. They lie
either scattered and single, in which case they are never
hatched, and are called by the Spaniards huachos; or they are
collected together into a shallow excavation, which forms the
nest. Out of the four nests which I saw, three contained
twenty-two eggs each, and the fourth twenty-seven. In one day's
hunting on horseback sixty-four eggs were found; forty-four of
these were in two nests, and the remaining twenty, scattered
huachos. The Gauchos unanimously affirm, and there is no reason
to doubt their statement, that the male bird alone hatches the
eggs, and for some time afterwards accompanies the young. The
cock when on the nest lies very close; I have myself almost
ridden over one. It is asserted that at such times they are
occasionally fierce, and even dangerous, and that they have been
known to attack a man on horseback, trying to kick and leap on
him. My informer pointed out to me an old man, whom he had seen
much terrified by one chasing him. I observe in Burchell's
"Travels in South Africa" that he remarks, "Having killed a male
ostrich, and the feathers being dirty, it was said by the
Hottentots to be a nest bird." I understand that the male emu in
the Zoological Gardens takes charge of the nest: this habit,
therefore, is common to the family.

The Gauchos unanimously affirm that several females lay in one
nest. I have been positively told that four or five hen birds
have been watched to go in the middle of the day, one after the
other, to the same nest. I may add, also, that it is believed in
Africa that two or more females lay in one nest. (5/13.
Burchell's "Travels" volume 1 page 280.) Although this habit at
first appears very strange, I think the cause may be explained in
a simple manner. The number of eggs in the nest varies from
twenty to forty, and even to fifty; and according to Azara,
sometimes to seventy or eighty. Now although it is most probable,
from the number of eggs found in one district being so
extraordinarily great in proportion to the parent birds, and
likewise from the state of the ovarium of the hen, that she may
in the course of the season lay a large number, yet the time
required must be very long. Azara states that a female in a state
of domestication laid seventeen eggs, each at the interval of
three days one from another. (5/14. Azara volume 4 page 173.) If
the hen was obliged to hatch her own eggs, before the last was
laid the first probably would be addled; but if each laid a few
eggs at successive periods, in different nests, and several hens,
as is stated to be the case, combined together, then the eggs in
one collection would be nearly of the same age. If the number of
eggs in one of these nests is, as I believe, not greater on an
average than the number laid by one female in the season, then
there must be as many nests as females, and each cock bird will
have its fair share of the labour of incubation; and that during
a period when the females probably could not sit, from not having
finished laying. (5/15. Lichtenstein, however, asserts "Travels"
volume 2 page 25, that the hens begin sitting when they have laid
ten or twelve eggs; and that they continue laying, I presume in
another nest. This appears to me very improbable. He asserts that
four or five hens associate for incubation with one cock, who
sits only at night.) I have before mentioned the great numbers of
huachos, or deserted eggs; so that in one day's hunting twenty
were found in this state. It appears odd that so many should be
wasted. Does it not arise from the difficulty of several females
associating together, and finding a male ready to undertake the
office of incubation? It is evident that there must at first be
some degree of association between at least two females;
otherwise the eggs would remain scattered over the wide plains,
at distances far too great to allow of the male collecting them
into one nest: some authors have believed that the scattered eggs
were deposited for the young birds to feed on. This can hardly be
the case in America, because the huachos, although often found
addled and putrid, are generally whole.

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