1866.] Eintomology. 269 
expelled from ferric hydrate by long boiling in contact with water. 
The author draws the conclusion that the natural beds of ferric 
oxide ore may have been deposited from aqueous solution, and 
become subsequently dehydrated by long exposure to a moderate heat. 
The next paper read was by Professor Kolbe, “‘On the Prognosis 
of Alcohols and Aldehydes.” It was of a purely theoretical cha- 
racter. 
V. ENTOMOLOGY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Entomological Society.) 
Ir is not often that entomological science is enriched with such 
works as the one recently published by Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston, 
entitled, ‘Coleoptera Atlantidum; bemg an Enumeration of the 
Coleopterous Insects of the Madeiras, Salvages, and Canaries.’ 
Since 1847, Mr. Wollaston has made several prolonged visits to 
one or another of those islands, and in this volume he brings 
together all that has yet been registered on the subject. His 
introductory remarks, extending to over forty closely printed pages, 
are well worthy: the attention of all philosophic naturalists, and we 
can only regret that our space will not allow us to give more than 
a summary of two or three of them. Of the whole number of 
genera (423), including 1,449 species, not one is found character- 
istic of the true African region, but so many of these are endemic 
that Mr. Wollaston thinks we should hardly be warranted in 
referring them to the European fauna. The author inclines to the 
opinion that these islands were aborigimally stocked while yet a 
part of a continuous land, and that the numerous slight modifica- 
tions or insular states “ which now present themselves, have not 
been matured by any process of slow development,” but were 
brought about at a very remote period, probably “when this great 
Atlantic province was rent asunder.” Space will not allow us to 
enter on the author’s arguments in support of this hypothesis; but 
we cannot avoid calling attention to the “ marvellous types” charac- 
teristic of the Huphorbian fauna. In the Canaries especially, 
where whole tracts are covered with Euphorbias, not less than fifty 
species of Coleopterous parasites are exclusively confined to them, 
not indeed to the living, but to the dead plants, and are met with 
in such incredible numbers that “the rotten stalks and branches 
seem absolutely alive with them.” 
In a former number of this Journal (ii. p. 669), when giving an 
account of the discovery by Professor Wagner, of Kasan, of the 
“larvee-producing larvee” of the Miastor metraloas, we spoke of 
them as having seemed to him to have been developed from “ em- 
bryonal bodies” belonging to the organism of the parent larve. 
