the practice of Entomologists to give, together with their descrip- 

 tions, the new data on relationships, distribution, comparison of 

 faunas, &:c., which the handling of such subjects most usually brings 

 forth. 



The third volume of the Third Series of our Transactions, which 

 I have already remarked has been completed during the year by the 

 publication of two parts, now forms a handsome faunistic work, 

 devoted entirely, as 5'ou are aware, to the description, by Mr. Pascoe, 

 of the Longicorn Coleoptera of the Malay Archipelago collected 

 by Mr. Wallace. We may congratulate ourselves on the termi- 

 nation of this volume, published out of the usual order of our 

 series, and on the addition that a work of so much scientific 

 value and careful execution in every wa}'^ makes to our Trans- 

 actions. It consists of 712 pages, illustrated by twenty-four plates, 

 executed with his usual ability by Mr. Robinson, and the volume 

 is rendered further more complete by remarks on the localities 

 by Mr. Wallace himself, and a summary of the subfamilies, genera 

 and species, tables of distribution, and an excellent index by 

 Mr. Dunning. 



Several contributions of considerable importance have been made 

 to the Science in this country outside our own body. Important 

 papers have appeared, as usual, in the pages of the ' Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History,' chiefly from the pens of Messrs. 

 Butler, SaMn, Andrew Murray and WoUaston. A memoir by the 

 last-named gentleman on the Coleoptera of St. Helena, founded on a 

 collection made by Mr. Melliss, who has been long resident in the 

 island, is interesting as a further addition to our knowledge of the 

 productions of oceanic islands in the Atlantic, so much of which 

 we owe to this learned Entomologist. The Madeiran, Canaries and 

 Cape Verde groups had already been almost exhaustively investi- 

 gated by Mr. WoUaston himself, Mr. Crotch had worked out the 

 entomological results of the exploration of the Azores by Mr. God- 

 man, and to Mr. WoUaston has appropriately been confided the 

 examination of by far the largest collection of insects which has yet 

 been made in the solitary island of St. Helena. As you are aware, 

 the great interest which attaches to the fauna and flora of oceanic 

 islands arises from the problems involved in the modes in which 

 they obtained their species of animals and plants, and which are 

 rendered more complicated by the existence on some of them of 



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