Paumotus

“ They have lost their language, have reduced themselves, by voluntary sales, to about fifty acres of land, which lie on the river of their own name, and have from time to time been joining the Pamunkies, from whom they are distant but 10 miles. The Pamunkies are reduced to about 10 or 12 men, tolerably pure from mixture with other colors. ”

“ Darwin believed that this pampas material was deposited within a vast estuary, into which great rivers carried from the surrounding region carcasses of the animals whose skeletons were entombed in muds tranquilly accumulating on the bottom. All conditions go to show that the mammalia became extinct after the sea had received its present fauna; and there is nothing to suggest that a period of overwhelming violence swept away and destroyed the inhabitants of the land; everything supports the contrary belief. The only noteworthy change in conditions has been a gradual elevation of the continent ”

“ A long familiarity with this insect (which, replaced by local forms or by closely allied species, occurs in every island of the Archipelago) has convinced me of the correctness of this statement; for in every place where a male allied to P. Pammon is found, a female resembling P. Polytes also occurs, and sometimes, though less frequently than on the continent, another female closely resembling the male; while 7not only has no male specimen of P. Polytes yet been found, but the female (Polytes) has never yet been found in localities to which the male (Pammon) does not extend. ”

“ In Birds the case is very different, since we at once meet with important groups, either wholly, or almost peculiar to the Papuan fauna. According to a careful estimate, embodying the recent discoveries of Meyer and D'Albertis, there are 350 species of Papuan land-birds comprised in 136 genera. About 300 of the species are absolutely peculiar to the district, while 39 of the genera are exclusively Papuan or just extend into the Moluccas, or into North Australia where it closely approaches New Guinea. ”

“ Moreover, I have been unable to learn that, in any instance, bones of the hippopotamus have been found in the drift of northern Germany associated with the remains of the mammoth, tichorhine rhinoceros, musk-ox, reindeer, lemming, and other arctic quadrupeds before alluded to; yet, though not proved to have ever made a part of such a fauna, the presence of the fossil hippopotamus north of the fiftieth parallel of latitude naturally tempts us to speculate on the migratory powers and instincts of some of the extinct species of the genus. ”

“ The several mammifers embedded in the Pampean formation, which mostly belong to extinct genera, and some even to extinct families or orders, and which differ nearly, if not quite, as much as do the Eocene mammifers of Europe from living quadrupeds having existed contemporaneously with mollusca, all still inhabiting the adjoining sea, is certainly a most striking fact. It is, however, far from being an isolated one; for, during the late tertiary deposits of Britain, an elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus co-existed with many recent land and fresh-water shells ”

“ The Pampean formation, judging from its similar composition, and from the apparent absolute specific identity of some of its mammiferous remains, and from the generic resemblance of others, belongs over its vast area—throughout Banda Oriental, Entre Rios, and the wide extent of the Pampas as far south as the Colorado,—to the same geological epoch. The mammiferous remains occur at all depths from the top to the bottom of the deposit ”

“ Papilio Pammon everywhere on the continent is tailed in both sexes. In Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, the closely allied P. Theseus has a very short tail, or tooth only, in the male, while in the females the tail is retained. Further east, in Celebes and the South Moluccas, the hardly separable P. Alphenor has quite lost the tail in the male, while the female retains it, but in a narrower and less spatulate form. A little further, in Gilolo, P. Nicanor has completely lost the tail in both sexes.
Papilio Agamemnon exhibits a somewhat similar series of changes. In India it is always tailed ”

“ At the end of September they suddenly appear all over the pampas, in every swamp and stream where there are beds of rushes; for in such situations only is the bird found: and this migration extends far into Patagonia. They are always seen in pairs amongst the dense rushes, where they perch on the smooth stems, not near the summit, but close down to the surface of the water, and perpetually hop from stem to stem, deftly picking up small insects from the surface of the water. They also occasionally leave the rushes and search for insects in the grass and herbage along the border. ”

“ Mr Darwin's interest was excited by the evidences everywhere present of the immensity of this extinct population. "The number of the remains imbedded in the great estuary-deposit which forms the Pampas, and covers the gigantic rocks of Banda Oriental, must be extraordinarily great. I believe a straight line drawn in any direction through the Pampas would cut through some skeleton or bones.... We may suppose that the whole area of the Pampas is one wide sepulchre of these extinct gigantic quadrupeds." ”

“ Although these cells were not fossorial in their nature, several other species of the same genus are as accomplished burrowers as any insect. Pompilus plumbeus, for example, another black species, burrows into sand, and is very plentiful on our more southern shores. It may usually be found hovering about sand-banks, and flitting about with such agility that it is by no means an easy insect to catch. The male is peculiarly apt to evade the stroke of the entomologist’s net. ”

“ Another common British species is Pompilus punctum, which is black in colour.
Family 12, Bombicidæ.—This small family is not represented in Britain, though found in southern Europe. Many of the insects burrow in the sand, scratching a hole with their forefeet like a dog, as observed by Sir S. Saunders in the Ionian Islands. In the daytime they may be seen flying rapidly from flower to flower, and many of them exhale an odour of roses. ”

“ If turned wild on the pampas, such animals would probably soon become extinct, or under favourable circumstances might each lose those extreme qualities which would never be called into action, and in a few generations would revert to a common type, which must be that in which the various powers and faculties are so proportioned to each other as to be best adapted to procure food and secure safety,—that in which by the full exercise of every part of his organization the animal can alone continue to live. ”

“ Malacca, Singapore (Wall.) , China, India, Ceylon.
The continental specimens of P. Pammon have all considerably developed tails in both sexes; the insular specimens on the other hand, (which I treat as a separate species) , have only a prominent tooth or very short tail in the males. The females also differ considerably, presenting an analogous but distinct series of forms. In the true P. Pammon the males are very constant; but the females exist under three distinct forms, each of them presenting more or less numerous varieties, viz.:—
1st form of female. ”

“ As in America, so in the Old World, species of Danaidæ are the objects which the other families most often imitate. But, besides these, some genera of Morphidæ and one section of the genus Papilio are also less frequently copied. Many species of Papilio mimic other species of these three groups so closely that they are undistinguishable when on the wing; and in every case the pairs which resemble each other inhabit the same locality.
The following list exhibits the most important and best-marked cases of mimicry which occur among the Papilionidæ of the Malayan region and India:—
8. ”

“ Moreover, the Macrauchenia Patachonica (of which, according to Professor Owen, remains also occur in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and at Punta Alta) has been shown by satisfactory evidence of another kind, to have lived on the plains of Patagonia long after the period when the adjoining sea was first tenanted by its present commonest molluscous animals. We must, therefore, conclude that the Pampean formation belongs, in the ordinary geological sense of the word, to the Recent Period. ”

“ The Horned Pout, Pimelodus nebulosus, sometimes called Minister, from the peculiar squeaking noise it makes when drawn out of the water, is a dull and blundering fellow, and like the eel vespertinal in his habits, and fond of the mud. It bites deliberately as if about its business. They are taken at night with a mass of worms strung on a thread, which catches in their teeth, sometimes three or four, with an eel, at one pull. They are extremely tenacious of life, opening and shutting their mouths for half an hour after their heads have been cut off. ”

“ Nothing less than a long succession of such accidents can account for the vast number of remains now found buried. As their exposure has invariably been due to the intersection of the plain by the banks of some stream, it is not making an extravagant assertion, to say, that any line whatever drawn across the Pampas would probably cross the skeleton of some extinct animal. ”

“ The puma is a very furtive and cowardly animal, and though we saw so few during our months of travel, I have no doubt that many a puma watched our troop passing across the pampa from the safe cover of rocks and bushes. Seeing or not seeing pumas is purely a matter of luck, and the tales concerning pumas having attacked men, which abound in the country, are generally fabrications. A puma with young will attack man if he stumbles upon her and her family, and my friend Mr. Waag told me that on one occasion a puma in the Cordillera had shown evident signs of attack. ”

“ But it happens that Bowallopus belonged to a class of felidae which does not prey upon man or the children of men, and he did none of these things. He waited until the groaning of the wagon died away, his head up, keen for sound or sight of danger. A puma relies more on his ears and eyes than on his nose to apprise him of enemy or victim. Then he went forward stealthily, moving in a wide semicircle.
The baby threshed about with his chubby arms and howled, whereat Bowallopus shrank back, hissing like an enraged gander, his tail lashing from side to side. ”

“ On the pastoral pampas (the district from which the giant grasses have disappeared) it is excessively abundant; and it is there resident, although, as with most strong-winged resident species, some individuals do certainly migrate, small parties being occasionally seen in spring and autumn flying steadily at a great height, apparently performing a long journey. As a rule the birds pair for life, and remain always on the spot where they breed. They may be persecuted with guns, their eggs taken year after year, even the ground turned up with the plough, but they still refuse to be driven out. ”

“ The bottom of the sea, I may remark, to a distance of several miles from the shore, and to a depth of between sixty and one hundred feet, was found by the anchors to be composed of tosca-rock and reddish Pampean mud. Professor Ehrenberg has examined for me specimens of the two lower beds, and finds in them three Polygastrica and six Phytolitharia. [5] Of these, only one (Spongolithis Fustis?) is a marine form; five of them are identical with microscopical structures of brackish-water origin, hereafter to be mentioned, which form a central point in the Pampean formation. ”

“ We may conclude, therefore, that they possess some hidden means of protection, which makes it useful to other insects to be mistaken for them.
The Papilios which resemble them belong to a very distinct section of the genus, in which the sexes differ greatly; and it is those females only which differ most from the males, and which have already been alluded to as exhibiting instances of dimorphism, which resemble species of the other group. ”

“ Several Gauchos, settlers and Indians informed me that there were two kinds of pumas in Patagonia, one being very common, silver-grey in colour and cowardly; the other they described as rare, much fiercer, of a reddish colour, and somewhat smaller than the common grey species. Amongst the seventy-three pumas killed by the English pioneers near Lake Argentino, one, Mr. Cattle told me, differed very much from the ordinary puma, and judging from the description he gave of it, I have no hesitation in concluding that it was a specimen of Felis concolor pearsoni. ”

“ It is rather curious, as occasionally happens, to see a herd of cows with their calves take up the trail of a puma with a great deal of lowing and fuss, but they do not follow it for any distance.
Darwin writes that the puma is a very silent animal, uttering no cry even when wounded, and only rarely during the breeding season. One moonlight night, in a forest by Lake Argentino, a couple of pumas came out of the dark and began to walk round and round the camp, and continued to do so for more than an hour, all the time keeping up their peculiar cry. ”

“ Many of the genera are quite strange to the rest of Australia. Land operculates are abundant, and of a Papuan type. Several of the characteristic Papuan genera of Helix (Papuina, Chloritis, Planispira) occur, while Hadra attains its maximum. Panda, Pedinogyra, and Thersites are three remarkable groups in a rich Helix fauna. Parmacochlea is a peculiar form akin to Helicarion. The carnivorous Mollusca are represented by Rhytida, Diplomphalus (New Caledonia) , and Elaea. One species of Janella, a slug peculiar to this region, occurs. The predominant fresh-water genus is Bulinus (Isidora) . ”