386 THE NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW. 



quities of the islands are rather touched upon than treated fully, not 

 from any want of information on the part of the authors, as they 

 show their familiarity with these subjects whenever they find it 

 needful to refer to them ; but, because their object was mainly to 

 give a faithful picture of the physical aspect and productions of tbe 

 island. In this tbey have been very successful, for thougli the 

 style of the work is rather desultory, leading to a good deal of 

 repetition, nothing of importance has been omitted. 



The object which our travellers had in visiting the East was to 

 enrich the domain of natural science with observations and col- 

 lections in some of the less known regions, and their choice fell on 

 Cyprus, which had already yielded a rich harvest to the historian 

 and archaeologist, but the natural history of which was, comparatively 

 speaking, unknow^n. Both of our travellers had already visited the 

 East, and one of them, already a veteran in Eastern travel, had been 

 twice before in Cyprus, no doubt taking away with him the conviction 

 that it was deserving of much further investigation. Another reason 

 w^hich influenced their selection, was, that the limited area of the 

 island enabled them to hope that they could explore it to their satis- 

 faction within the time w^hich they were able to devote to the purpose. 



The island of Cyprus had indeed been previously visited on 

 several occasions by naturalists, chiefly botanists. Eirst of all by 

 Labiilardi^re in Eebruary 1787, who, however, only explored the 

 Monte Croce, near Larnaka, and in the same year, a little later, by 

 Sibthorp and his fellow-travellers, Hawltins and Ferdinand Bauer. 

 The pencil of Bauer has in that magnificent work, the Elora Graeca 

 given most admirable illustrations of the plants of the East in a style 

 which, as our authors well observe, leaves nothing to be wished 

 for. These travellers remained in Cyprus from the 8th April to 

 the 13th May, exploring the southern coast and mountains. Of 

 the figures in the Elora Graeca 371^ represent Cyprian plants. 

 In 1801, Clark -vdsited Cyprus and described a few plants. In 

 August, 1831, the well-known botanist Aucher-Eloy explored the 

 neighbourhood of Paphos and the mountain Troodos. Kotschy on 

 his return from Sennaar and Cordofan visited Cyprus in October 

 and November, 1840, but at that unfavourable season though he 

 travelled over a considerable portion of the island and collected 

 assiduously, he only got sixty species. In 1853, Gaudry travelled 

 in the island, devoting his attention chiefly to geology, but giving at 

 the same time careful attention to agriculture. He collected a 



