dicals. I also send a small bottle
with two lizards, one of them is viviparous as you will see by the
accompanying notice. A M. Gay--a French naturalist--has already
published in one of the newspapers of this country a similar statement
and probably has forwarded to Paris some account; as the fact appears
singular would it not be worth while to hand over the specimens to some
good lizardologist and comparative anatomist to publish an account of
their internal structure? Do what you think fit.

This letter will go with a cargo of specimens from Coquimbo. I shall
write to let you know when they are sent off. In the box there are two
bags of seeds, one [from the] valleys of the Cordilleras 5,000-10,000
feet high, the soil and climate exceedingly dry, soil very light and
stony, extremes in temperature; the other chiefly from the dry sandy
Traversia of Mendoza 3,000 feet more or less. If some of the bushes
should grow but not be healthy, try a slight sprinkling of salt and
saltpetre. The plain is saliferous. All the flowers in the Cordilleras
appear to be autumnal flowerers--they were all in blow and seed, many of
them very pretty. I gathered them as I rode along on the hill sides.
If they will but choose to come up, I have no doubt many would be great
rarities. In the Mendoza bag there are the seeds or berries of what
appears to be a small potato plant with a whitish flower. They grow
many leagues from where any habitation could ever have existed owing to
absence of water. Amongst the Chonos dried plants, you will see a fine
specimen of the wild potato, growing under a most opposite climate, and
unquestionably a true wild potato. It must be a distinct species from
that of the Lower Cordilleras one. Perhaps as with the banana, distinct
species are now not to be distinguished in their varieties produced by
cultivation. I cannot copy out the few remarks about the Chonos potato.
With the specimens there is a bundle of old papers and notebooks. Will
you take care of them; in case I should lose my notes, these might be
useful. I do not send home any insects because they must be troublesome
to you, and now so little more of the voyage remains unfinished I can
well take charge of them. In two or three days I set out for Coquimbo by
land; the "Beagle" calls for me in the beginning of June. So that I
have six weeks more to enjoy geologising over these curious mountains
of Chili. There is at present a bloody revolution in Peru. The Com