340 Bibliographical Notice. 



the interior. But his " ride did not add much to the sum of our 

 knowledge respecting the island." He goes on : — 



" The soil of Vavau is of a didl red, and of so friable a nature 

 " that it crumbles in the hand like the ashes of Pompeii. Lava is 

 " to be found in many places, and a white stone riddled with holes, 

 " which some refer to the coral, but which appears to me to be 

 " rather a species of lava, like that formerly thrown out by Vesu- 

 " vius, and which is still found in the Bay of Naples. This stone is 

 " very hard, heavy, and susceptible of a very fine polish. The igneous 

 " origin of these countries is, moreover, proved by the little island of 

 " Latte, situated some miles to the west, where there is now an 

 " active volcano, which I was sorry not to have visited." 



Then follows, from Mr. Meade's manuscript journal*, an account of 

 the singular cave with its submarine entrance, originally described 

 by Mariner, and so ingeniously introduced by Byron into his poem 

 of ' The Island,' though the fact was unknown at the time to the 

 writer. Mr. Brenchley concludes : — 



" The island possesses no indigenous mammifers, those now found 

 " in it being of recent introduction. On the other hand, there is 

 " a great quantity and variety of fish and Crustacea. The birds, as I 

 " have already remarked, present no great variety of species, and 

 " resemble those previously met with during our cruise. 



" Besides the vegetables I have mentioned, cabbages and onions 

 " are cultivated. The principal product of the island is cocoa-nut 

 " oil ; sugar-cane is grown, but on a very small scale ; the same 

 " may be said of the cotton-plant." 



This is not satisfactory ; yet it is a fair if not favourable sample. 

 The author no doubt did do his best to redeem his promise of 

 writing a book about the cruise ;" but we are forcibly reminded of the 

 old story of ' Eyes and No Eyes.' Yet. the worst fault we have to 

 find with the volume is the absence of any connexion between the 

 author's narrative and the " Natural-History Notices " published at 

 the end : nowhere in the former is the slightest reference made to 

 the species figured or described in the latter ; so that, if any of them 

 be mentioned in the text, we can only hazard an identification. This 

 is unfortunate ; for the plates (especially those by Mr. Ford) are 

 very good. Many new species were brought home by Mr. Brenchley 

 (some of them having been already described in our own pages, 

 while others appear now for the first time) ; and the names of Mr. 

 George Gray, Dr. Giinther, Dr. Baird, Mr. Frederick Smith, and 

 Mr. A. G. Butler, the joint authors of these " Notices," are suffi- 

 cient to require attention to them. It remains to say that 27 spe- 

 cies of Birds are figured, 9 of Beptiles, 12 of Fishes (besides 3 more 

 described), 33 of Shells (besides 1 more described), and 27 of In- 

 sects. Mr. Brenchley's collections, we are told, have been divided 



* In the preface (p. vi) the author states that a variety of circum- 

 stances prevented his making use of the papers of this intelligent and 

 distinguished young officer, whose premature death was a severe loss to 

 the service ; but both here and elsewhere Mr. Brenchley's volume con- 

 tains extracts from them. 



