Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, Vol. 3 [of 3] · Charles Darwin
FOOTNOTES:
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 Onthophagus, 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 quadruped 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 foregoing, and other insects. [5] Seeds must not be sent home in the same case with skins prepared with poison, camphor, or essential oils; scarcely any of mine germinated, and Professor Henslow thinks they were thus killed. [6] Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy.
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