506 Mr. E. Blyth on the Columblnse. 



Mediterranean latitudes, and which occurs also in Madeira and 

 the Canarian Group. 



4. A rather large insect, intermediate apparently between 

 Opatrum and Asida, of which I have not been able as yet to 

 determine the genus ; but which (as it would seem to be abun- 

 dant in those islands) is probably well known. 



5. An insect, which may perhaps constitute a new genus, 

 bearing some slight prima-facie resemblance to a Pedinus ; but 

 with much slenderer legs, distinctly clubbed antennse, a brownish 

 piceous hue, and a somewhat pubescent surface. 



6 and 7. Two species of Oxyura, Sol. { = Melancrus, Dej.), — 

 probably the O. hegeteroides and pedinoides of Erichson, described 

 in Wiegmann^s 'Archiv^ (ix. 236, 64 and 65), amongst the 

 supposed Coleoptera of Angola. 



8. The Hegeter elongatuSy Oliv. ( :=striatuSy Latr.), an abundant 

 insect in Madeira and the Canary Islands, which M. Deyrolle 

 of Paris informs me that he has received, also, from Senegal, 

 on the opposite coast of Africa ; and which, moreover, has even 

 been admitted (though I cannot but believe erroneously) into 

 the European Catalogues. 



Such are the 15 species collected by Messrs. Gray and Clark 

 during a day's hard work in this barren island. And I can only 

 add that their investigations, for so short a visit, may be con- 

 sidered as eminently successful; for I am informed by my 

 nephew, E. W. Hutton, Esq., of the 23rd Welsh Eusiliers, who 

 lately touched at St. Vincent's on his route to India, and who, 

 likewise, went on shore for a day, to obtain for me all that he 

 was able, that he only '^succeeded in capturing six species of 

 beetles, sundry locusts, and a lizard ;" and he further adds the 

 somewhat significant remark, that ^' a grave-stone sticking out of 

 the middle of the Atlantic would be a paradise compared to it." 



XLIX. — Remarks on the Columbinse, with a Description of a new 

 Indian Pigeon, akin to the ^ Stock Dove' of Europe. By Edward 

 Blyth*. 



In no other group of birds is the difficulty of discriminating 

 between species and permanent varieties, whatever latitude may be 

 allowed under either denomination, so great and so constantly 

 recurring, as in sundry genera of Pigeons. And yet each race, 

 however slightly distinguished from certain other races, is re- 

 markably true to its particular distinctive characters, where- 

 soever it be found ; and it remains to show that any gradations 



♦ From the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, No. 3, 1857. 



