Feb, 28, 1878] 



NATURE 



339 



{Entomologists' Monthly Magazine, xii. p. 252) that the 

 net may be used over miles of grassy mountain-slopes 

 without finding a single flower-frequenter, or anything 

 approaching to it. Under these conditions, it is not to be 

 wondered at that Mr. Melliss's account of the island, not 

 long ago reviewed in Nature, should, as not representing 

 the work of an expert, have failed adequately to represent 

 its peculiar coleopterous features. Of the 203 species above 

 mentioned, fifty- seven have undoubtedly been conveyed 

 to the island through various external media, and have 

 since established themselves — many of them, indeed* 

 being the regular followers of civilisation. Seventeen of 

 the remainder possess doubtful claims to be considered 

 indigenous, or even to have been taken in St. Helena at 

 all. Of the 129 species left, and which may be safely 

 deemed endemic, the distribution is highly eccentric. 

 Whole groups, hitherto regarded as well-nigh cosmopolitan, 

 are either entirely absent or barely represented ; and one 

 section, the weevils, is most unduly exaggerated, especially 

 in one of its families. The missing divisions are water- 

 beetles (both Hydradephaga axidPhtlhydj'ida — the aquatic 

 Caniivora and Herbivord), and Longicornia ; and their 

 absence is the more noteworthy, as proper natural con- 

 ditions exist for both of them ; and, as to the latter^ 

 other wood-feeders have inordinately increased and 

 multiplied. The Necrophaga (a wide term, covering 

 many families of universal distribution, including bone-, 

 skin-, and fungus-feeders, acting as natural scavengers, 

 and whereof we have, even in Great Britain alone, over 

 450 species) and Trichopterygia have each but a 

 single representative. The Pseudotrimera {Coccinellidce, 

 &c.) and Lamellicornia can each only supply two. As 

 to the former of these groups. Prof. Westwood has well 

 observed that the inference is a want of Aphides and 

 other plant-lice, on which lady-birds are the natural 

 parasites ; and on this point it would be interesting to 

 know if the usual Homopterous vegetable-feeders are 

 really wanting. If not indigenous they might be readily 

 introduced ; and, enumerating even the avowedly intro- 

 duced Pseicdotrimera in Mr. WoUaston's list, we find 

 only four species to keep them down, since the Cotylo- 

 phidcB and Erotylidce included in the group by the 

 author cannot be reckoned. As to the Lamellicorns, the 

 want of indigenous mammals would readily account for 

 the absence of such of them as feed on the excreta of 

 those animals {two only, both introduced, can be found ; 

 here Baron von Harold would assuredly perish of ina- 

 nition !) ; but the mighty tropical clan, revelling in rotten 

 wood, should surely in such a latitude, with the decaying 

 forests of centuries for pabulum, have reared more than 

 the miserable tale of four, whereof but two are autoch- 

 thones ! Next in number come the Priocerata and Phy- 

 tophaga, respectively counting but three. The Elaieridce 

 and Anobiidce, essentially wood-feeders, are the only 

 families of the first of these that provide indigenous 

 species : how they have failed to produce more is incom- 

 prehensible. The fact of plant-feeding beetles being of 

 the greatest scarcity has been already quoted from the 

 author himself, and is equally unintelligible. The Sta- 

 phylinidce and Heteromera each supply six indigenous 

 forms, the paucity of the latter being perhaps accounted 

 for by the lack of those sandy wastes peculiarly affected 

 by so many of its members. Next in importance come 



the Geodephaga, or land carnivorous beetles, whereof as 

 many as fourteen (in fact all but one, and of them no less 

 than eleven here described as new) are recorded. Here, 

 again, the peculiarity of the island is emphasised, as the 

 eleven new species, all of the genus Bembidium, depart 

 widely from the shingle-, mud-, and marsh-frequenting 

 habits of that vast and widely distributed genus, occurring 

 as they do in the high central mountain ridges, and living 

 inside the fibrous stems of rotten tree-ferns, an unexpected 

 habitat as strange as that recorded in the Horatian 



lines : — 



" Piscium et summa genus hsesit ulmo, 

 Nota quee sedes fuerat columbis." 



These arboreal Bembids have necessitated the creation 

 of three new sub-genera, distinguished by abnormally 

 minute eyes, want of wings, rounded outline, fossorial 

 legs, and moniliform antennas ; and would alone have 

 been sufficient to have stamped the fauna as std generis. 



Last, and most important, come the Rhynchophora or 

 weevils, with no less than ninety-one representatives, 

 more than two-thirds of the whole number. These again 

 are represented in unusual proportions, the Cossonidcs 

 numbering fifty-four, two-fifths of the entire fauna (we 

 have in England but nine, out of 3,000 species), and the 

 AnthribidcB twenty-six. The conclusion derived by the 

 author is, that, as these weevils unquestionably represent 

 the dominant autochthonous family, and all (but one) are 

 of lignivorous habits, St. Helena may be pictured in the 

 remote past as a densely-wooded island, in which they 

 performed their natural functions of tree-destroyers among 

 tree-ferns and Compositce on a gigantic scale, unaided by 

 the usual timber-eaters. The well-nigh complete destruc- 

 tion of indigenous trees in modern times has no doubt 

 been accompanied by the loss of many a link in the 

 aboriginal chain of these peculiar forms. Those that 

 still survive are of such eccerttric structure and facies that 

 the creation of eleven new genera and forty new species 

 has been necessitated for their reception in the present 

 work, which, had it been the sole production of its author, 

 would have efifectually prevented his name from passing 

 into oblivion. E. C. Rye 



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Oxygen in the Sun 



Attention having recently been directed by Dr. Schuster 

 and Mr. Meldola, in connection with my discovery of oxygen in 

 the sun, to the location of the oxygen, it may be of interest to 

 allude to some experiments to determine the question by direct 

 observation of the image of the sun spectroscopically. For this 

 purpose I used a spectroscope furnished with a very fine grating 

 on silvered glass given to me by Mr. Rutherfurd. This grating 

 of 17,280 lines to the inch can be arranged to give a dispersion 

 equal to twenty heavy flint glass prisms. The spectroscope was 

 attached to my 12-inch Clark refractor, and I employed the 

 full aperture of this telescope to produce an image of the sun on 

 the slit. It did not seem practicable to use the spectroscope on 

 the 28-inch Cassegrain reflector in this research, because the 

 tremulousness of the air was usually too great, the image of the 



