206 REVIEWS. 



county of Wicklow, by Mr. Tardy, of Dublin. For many years subsequently, tt 

 appears to have been altogether lost sight of, until detected by myself, in 1844, at 

 Mount Edgecumbe, in Devonshire, and along the coast of Cornwall, westwards as far 

 as Menabilly and Fowey. In the north of Devon I have likewise observed it, in the 

 valley of the Lyn, though less abundantly than on the shores of the English Chan- 

 nel. Thus skirting as it were the south-western extremity of our own country it 

 passes over to Ireland, where it may be said to attain its maximum, attaching it- 

 self to the trees (especially evergreens) in the mountains of Wicklow and Kerry 

 (and probably in other districts equally), much to the detriment of the ancient tim- 

 ber, in which its ravages, evidently for centuries, are but too conspicuous. Judging 

 from the extent of the injury committed, it would seem to have been commoner 

 formerly, and more generally diffused than now. At Killarney, I have been 

 accustomed to mark its devastations for several years past, and had constantly 

 met with traces of it under the form of detached elytra, and broken portions of its 

 body, in the oldest trees ; but it was not until the summer of 1853, that a perfect 

 specimen, captured by a friend in a decayed holly, at Dinas, came beneath my 

 notice. Being thus warned of more than its past existence, we commenced a care- 

 ful research during the following September, on Innisfallen, one of the islands of 

 the Lower Lake, where we found it still ranging in profusion, and from whence I 

 obtained a fine series of examples, averaging a somewhat larger size than the 

 Devonshire and Cornish ones.'' 



" Whether or not this partial parallelism may be employed to further 

 Professor Forbes's theory of the quondam approximation, by means of a 

 continuous land of the Kerry and Gallician hills, and of a huge miocene 

 continent extending beyond the Azores, and including all these Atlantic 

 clusters within its embrace, I will not venture to suggest ; nevertheless, it 

 is impossible to deny that, so far as the Madeiras betoken, everything 

 would go to favour this grand and comprehensive idea. Partaking, in the 

 main, of a Mediterranean fauna, the northern tendency of which is in 

 evident direction of the south-western portions of Ireland and England, 

 and with a profusion of endemic modifications of its own (bearing witness 

 to the engorgement of this ancient tract, with centres of radiation created 

 expressly for itself)- — whilst geology proclaims the fact that subsidences, on 

 a stupendous scale, have taken place, by which means the ocean groups 

 were constituted — we seem to trace out, on every side, records of the past, 

 and to catch the glimpses, as it were, of a veritable Atlantis from beneath 

 the waves of time, being well nigh tempted to inquire : — 



1 And though, fairest isle, 



In the daylight's smile, 

 Hast thou sunk in the boiling ocean, 



While beyond thy strand 



Rose a mightier land 

 From the wave in alternate motion ? 



4 Are the isles that stud 



The Atlantic flood 

 But the peaks of thy tallest mountains, 



While repose below 



The great waters' flow 

 Thy towns, and thy towers, and fountains ? 



