141 



The Mesites Maderensis, Woll., to which I alluded in 

 the above quotation, is undoubtedly a strong case in 

 point. Although specifically dissimilar from the M. 

 Tardii, its Irish counterpart, it nevertheless approaches 

 it so closely, that it might be literally mistaken, primd 

 facie, for that insect ; and we know that it is one of the 

 plans on which Nature commonly proceeds, that species 

 which are not merely representative of (or analogous to) 

 each other, but which are actual homologues, or allies, 

 should usually emanate at first from foci not far removed 

 inter se ; or, at all events, if distant, connected by an 

 intervening land: in other words, that generic areas, 

 no less than specific centres, of radiation, form a sub- 

 stantial item of the comprehensive scheme on which the 

 system of created things was originally planned. We 

 detect traces of this primary law in each division, or 

 class, of the organic world ; nor is its reality as a law 

 interfered with, through the occasional exceptions which 

 are liable, as in every other instance, to present them- 

 selves. Such deviations are often easily to be accounted 

 for, whether by natural or artificial means ; and do not 



Bacon has suggested) it was the New World, will probably never 

 now be known ; yet the fact that the Insulce Fortunate of Juba are 

 almost universally identified with the present Canarian Group (as 

 indeed the accurate description of Pliny well nigh demonstrates), 

 and the Purpurarice with the Madeiras, ought at once, apart from 

 geological evidence, to point out the absurdity of the hypothesis, 

 that an Atlantic continent, in the very position which those islands 

 occupy, could have been acknowledged to have any existence by the 

 literature of either Rome or Greece. 



