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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 



Letters Home, from Spain, Algeria, and Brazil, during past Entomo- 

 logical Rambles. By the Rev. Hamlet Clark, M.A., F.L.S. 

 London: Van Voorst. I8G7. 

 To notice this volume from merely a scientific point of view would 

 be an injustice to its lamented author, by whom its contents were 

 not intended to convey accurate information available for the pur- 

 poses of science. The series of Letters which it embraces were 

 addressed principally to an aged father, who had but little scientific 

 knowledge, and who probably entertained no special desire to increase 

 what he already possessed. But there is a truthfulness and buoyancy 

 about their style which at once attest the good faith of the writer, 

 who it is impossible not to perceive is a genuine lover of Nature in 

 all her phases ; whilst his keen appreciation of everything that he 

 saw, and the strong dash of the ridiculous, often so graphically ex- 

 pressed, which permeates the whole, will more than compensate, in 

 the minds of many readers, for the want of that conventional dryness 

 which is the rule rather than the exception in so-called "scientific" 

 publications. 



In his friend John Gray, Esq., who has contributed some interest- 

 ing sketches to the present volume, Mr. Clark found, through many 

 years, and on several different occasions, a kind and invaluable com- 

 panion ; and it was in his yacht the ' Miranda,' while visiting Spain, 

 Portugal, and the north of Africa, that about half of these ' Letters ' 

 were composed. The other half were written during a trip with Mr. 

 Gray to Brazil, when, instead of being accompanied by the yacht, they 

 took the mail steamer to Rio Janeiro. And on all these various ex- 

 peditions their one common point of interest (apart from the pleasure 

 of visiting strange countries and enjoying new scenes) appears to 

 have been centred in entomology, and especially in Coleoptera. 



It is scarcely possible in a short notice like this to do more than 

 call attention to the general plan of Mr. Clark's volume. He writes 

 enthusiastically of the different spots which were visited by himself 

 and Mr. Gray ; and nothing could be more true to nature, or more 

 genial, than some of his humorous descriptions of the places touched 

 at in the north of Spain. But it is in Brazil that he is the most 

 graphic — when let loose as it were for the first time under a tropical 

 sun. "I cannot describe to you," says he, on landing at Bahia, 

 " the beauties of scenery like this. At some moments I could fancy 

 that we had jumped right out of this dirty world, and had found 

 ourselves all at once in the old Hesperides — the islands of the Blest 

 — where the fruits are ever ripe, the sun is always bright, and the 

 shadows invite repose ; and where plants, and birds, and insects, and 

 all created things, are in the perfection of beauty : but as for man, 

 as soon as I think of him, I am back again in my natural existence" 

 (p. 105). And again, on reaching some famous falls near Constancia, 

 in the virgin forest of the Organ Mountains, none but a genuine 

 student of nature would have written thus : — " We rested for an horn- 

 on the rock ; we did not talk, hardly spoke a word to each other. 



