208 REVIEWS, 



risked by strangers, and at altitudes where the fierce elements of winter shall gira 

 way, at last, to perpetual sunshine and the fresh breezes of a calmer sea. There is 

 something amazingly luxurious in betaking oneself to tertt life, after months of con- 

 finement and annoyance (it may be entirely — partially it must be), in the heat and 

 noise of Funchal. We are then, perhaps, more than ever open to the favourable 

 impression of an Alpine existence ; and who can adequately tell the ecstacy of a 

 first encampment on those invigorating hills ! To turn out, morning after morning, 

 in the solemn stillness of aerial forests, where not a sound is heard, save, ever and 

 anon, the woodman's axe in some far-off tributary ravine, or a stray bird, hymning 

 forth its matin song to the ascending sun ; to feel the cool influence of the early 

 dawn on the upland sward, and to mark the thin clouds of fleecy snow uniting 

 gradually into a solid bank, affording glimpses the while, as they join and sepa- 

 rate, of the fair creation stretched out beneath ; to smell the damp, cool vapour, 

 rising from the deep defiles around us, where vegetation is still rampant on pri- 

 meval rocks, and new generations of trees are springing up, untouched by man, 

 from the decaying carcases of the old ones ; to listen, in the still, calm, evening air, 

 to the humming of the insect world (the most active tenants of these elevated 

 tracts) ; to mark, as the daylight wanes, the unnumbered orbs of night stealing, 

 one by one, on to the wide arch of heaven, as brilliant as they were on the first 

 evening of their birth — are the lofty enjoyments, all which the intellectual mind 

 can grasp in these transcendant heights. It is needless, however, to pursue the 

 picture further ; for it is impossible to do justice to what experience alone can enable 

 us to appreciate ; and let not any one suppose that the varied objects and scenes of 

 novelty, which administer to our superior feelings and charm the eye in these upland 

 solitudes, are adapted only to the scrutiny of the naturalist, and are either beneath 

 the notice of, or else cannot be sufficiently entered into by the general mass — for 

 such is by no means the case. A single trial, we are convinced, will be more than 

 enough to prove the reverse, provided the adventurer be not altogether insensible 

 to perceptions from without, or incurious as to the workings of the external uni- 

 verse around him. This, however, we need scarcely add, is a sine qua non ; for 

 it has been well said, that M he who wondereth at nothing, hath no capabilities of 

 bliss ; but he that scrvtinizeth trifles^ hath a store of pleasure to his hand ; and 

 happy and wise is the man to whose mind a trifle existeth not" 



But we must uot forget to mention the plates which accompany this 

 volume. They are thirteen in number, and are drawn by the masterly 

 hand of Mr. J. 0. Westwood, and engraved by Mr. F. Smith. They 

 represent, for the most part, those insects which have been discovered or 

 described by Mr. Wollaston, with all the necessary dissections. When we 

 regard the immense expense attending a work like the present, we must, 

 indeed, consider that it was undertaken, as the author tells us, as a labour 

 of love ; and with the sole aim, within its prescribed limits, of arriving at 

 the truth ; and confidently, indeed, may he appeal to others to judge of the 

 result of his labours. We could not expect that many local faunas would 

 be published in the expensive style of the present one, nor would it, 

 indeed, be desirable ; but we do hope that others will take example by Mr. 

 Wollaston, and will add to the stock of our knowledge of natural science, 

 by observations so carefully made, in situ, as these. 



The warmest thanks of entomologists are due to Mr. Wollaston for the 

 publication of this work. They will find it to contain everything that a 

 scholar and an indefatigable lover of nature could bring to bear upon their 

 favourite science ; and we think Mr. Wollaston entitled to take a high 



