small. But I maintain that no person has a right to accuse me, till he has
tried carrying rocks under a tropical sun. I have endeavoured to get
specimens of every variety of rock, and have written notes upon all. If
you think it worth your while to examine any of them I shall be very glad
of some mineralogical information, especially on any numbers between 1 and
254 which include Santiago rocks. By my catalogue I shall know which you
may refer to. As for my plants, "pudet pigetque mihi." All I can say is
that when objects are present which I can observe and particularise about,
I cannot summon resolution to collect when I know nothing.

It is positively distressing to walk in the glorious forest amidst such
treasures and feel they are all thrown away upon one. My collection from
the Abrolhos is interesting, as I suspect it nearly contains the whole
flowering vegetation--and indeed from extreme sterility the same may almost
be said of Santiago. I have sent home four bottles with animals in
spirits, I have three more, but would not send them till I had a fourth. I
shall be anxious to hear how they fare. I made an enormous collection of
Arachnidae at Rio, also a good many small beetles in pill boxes, but it is
not the best time of year for the latter. Amongst the lower animals
nothing has so much interested me as finding two species of elegantly
coloured true Planaria inhabiting the dewy forest! The false relation they
bear to snails is the most extraordinary thing of the kind I have ever
seen. In the same genus (or more truly family) some of the marine species
possess an organisation so marvellous that I can scarcely credit my
eyesight. Every one has heard of the discoloured streaks of water in the
equatorial regions. One I examined was owing to the presence of such
minute Oscillariae that in each square inch of surface there must have been
at least one hundred thousand present. After this I had better be silent,
for you will think me a Baron Munchausen amongst naturalists. Most
assuredly I might collect a far greater number of specimens of Invertebrate