Bibliographical Notices. 349 



with a distractingly large fauna and flora. When he went, Mr. Wol- 

 laston was regarded by naturahsts as one of our ablest entomolo- 

 gists. The more minute the Coleopteron, the more he seemed to 

 love it ; for beetles he searched the bogs and lakes and mountains of 

 Ireland and Scotland, and surveyed his native land from Newcastle 

 to the Chesil-bank — the said bank being a most prolific *' field " 

 under the eye of such an " explorer." Mr. Wollaston did not confine 

 himself to collecting, neither did he leave the " minims of nature '* 

 to be determined, by comparison merely, with named specimens in 

 the collections of friends or in the great museum of his country. He 

 was a scholar and fond of books ; a Cambridge M. A., with tastes like 

 his, regards the Latin of Cicero and Tacitus, of Virgil, Horace and 

 Juvenal, as pedantic when introduced into the technicalities of 

 science, and so he looks with sympathy on the energetic, though 

 often unclassical, language of men not generally trained in Halls. 

 Like Gray of Pembroke, Mr. Wollaston, of Jesus College, was a 

 naturalist by taste and by study. He "worked out" descriptions, 

 and thus '* served before the mast," before he tried to guide the ship. 

 He was intimate with the structure of his little friends, and saw how 

 wonderfully their hooks and spines and notches and hairs and lobes 

 and appendages are adapted to the peculiar habits and " oeconomy" 

 of insects. 



Hard study at college demanded relaxation, and his health 

 induced him to seek it in a mild and distant climate. He was 

 happy in knowing a clergyman long resident in Madeira and fami- 

 liar with some departments of natural history, such as Fishes, Mol- 

 lusks and Plants, with which he (Mr. Wollaston) was less acquainted, 

 while this friend, the Rev. R. T. Lowe, having great local knowledge, 

 directed him to many a favourite spot. Richly was Mr. Wollaston' s 

 teacher in Mollusca rewarded by his indefatigable pupil ; — but we must 

 refrain, and proceed to the work on the Coleoptera of Madeira. 



The author went to Madeira three times, and so arranged his visits 

 that he got collections in every month of the year. Having collected 

 with the utmost zeal and preserved his treasures with the greatest care 

 and neatness, he brought his insect collections to England, and com- 

 menced arranging and classifying them. He had not limited himself, 

 as most British collectors do, to the Coleopterous productions of his 

 native land, but had a knowledge as well as specimens of most of 

 the Coleoptera, indigenous to Europe and the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean ; in truth he had studied the faunae of those lands which 

 most closely resembled Madeira in their animal productions. Not 

 wishing to anticipate any one, or to interfere with what had been 

 done before, and which possibly, in the labyrinth and mazes of 

 journals, might have escaped his notice, Mr. Wollaston visited the 

 continental collections, and with great openness submitted his insect 

 treasures to the sight of the various "specialistes." Like Horace, 

 too, he was in no hurry, — he could afford to wait ; and though 

 he did not literally adopt the Horatian maxim and keep his MS. 

 for nine years, he made entomologists impatient, by his very 

 carefulness. And at last the work is out. We might object to 



