244 



A T () M A U I A. 



whole north coast of South America, the West India 

 islands, and the narrow part of the isthmus on the 

 west of the Atlantic. In both situations some places 

 are land-locked, or covered seaward by others, so that 

 the action of the current upon all is not alike : the 

 general direction of the coast, too, throws the current 

 over the Pacific southward, and that over the Atlantic 

 northward. The last is very remarkable ; and not- 

 withstanding the intense cold of the north of America, 

 there are traces of a tropical character, both in the 

 plants and the animals, to some distance up the 

 valley of the Mississippi. There is at least one species 

 of palm ; there are both land and water reptiles of 

 tropical character ; and there are marsupial animals as 

 far to the north as Virginia. 



All those places which receive the trade winds, or 

 currents of the atmosphere, which have swept for 

 long distances over the tropical seas, are remarkable 

 for the richness, the variety, and the peculiarity of 

 their productions, both vegetable and animal. The 

 trees of the Oriental isles are equally remarkable for 

 the richness of their foliage, the fragrance of their 

 flowers, the flavour of their fruits, the aromatic pun- 

 gency of their spices, and the beauty of their timber. 

 They are the chosen habitations of the true apes, of 

 monkeys innumerable, of climbing birds of the richest 

 plumage, and of that singular race, the birds of Para- 

 dise. There, also, the crushing serpents attain their 

 largest size, and the poisonous ones their most deadly 

 venom. Islands with broken surfaces, and roman- 

 tic alternations of forest and rock, are not the 

 proper haunts for the larger beasts of prey ; but 

 those of intermediate size in the Eastern isles are as 

 peculiar as the other productions. 



Nor is the exuberance of nature confined to the 

 land ; for in all places where the bottom can be seen, 

 the sea is equally fertile and varied in plants and in 

 animals. The mollusca, the Crustacea, the annelidas, 

 and even the common finny tribes of the deep, are 

 abundant, curious, and glowing in their tints, in those 

 places of the intensity of nature's action. Colour of 

 the utmost brilliance, both in plants and in animals, 

 is one of the characteristics of those all-prolific 

 climes ; and that colour not only beautifies all upon 

 land, but plunges down into the waters and elicits 

 radiant tints there. Where the solar rays come 

 nearly perpendicular, they act upon the earth and 

 enter the waters nearly in equal parts of the whole 

 spectrum, whereas, when the rays come sloping, the 

 blue and violet, and those tintless rays beyond, 

 which appear to have, with iodine, and with the pro- 

 duction of both pungency and colour, some myste- 

 rious connexion which the present extent of science 

 is unable to explain, are dissipated by refraction ; and 

 hence, as we approach the poles, colours, properly so 

 called, become lew and faint, and, both in plant and 

 in animal, they tend gradually to the ultimate, con- 

 trast of black, the absence of light, with white, the 

 presence of light unbroken by action. But, in the 

 regions under consideration, we have every glory 

 which the bow of heaven can display, heightened and 

 varied by all the assistance of deep velvety surface, 

 metallic lustre, and the playful iridescence of changing 

 hues. 



In the west, the corresponding lands are dif- 

 ferent, but they are hardly less striking. We have 

 the rosewoods, the mahogany, the dyewoods, the 

 allspice, and countless species of medicinal trees ; 

 we have the sloths in place of the apes, and monkeys 



as abundant in number though different in form ; we 

 have also maccaws and humming-birds, and toucans, 

 and many other winged creatures, gay in their co- 

 lours and curious in their shapes and habits almost 

 beyond description ; nor must we forget the fang of 

 the bushmaster, the most formidable perhaps with 

 which any reptile is armed. It is to be borne in mind, 

 too, that here the influence extends over a far wider 

 range. The isles of the east are only, as it were, a 

 few gardens, while America is a wide field ; and the 

 influence of the current sweeps round from Cape St. 

 Roque to the Mississippi, and plays along the mighty 

 valley of the Amazon, as far as the base of the 

 Andes. 



There is one curious point, though philosophy has 

 not yet brought it into any connexion. The ter- 

 minations of these two currents are antipodal, or at 

 the opposite ends of a diameter of the globe, a 

 coincidence which happens with very few places, 

 as almost all the rest of the land has its antipodes 

 in the sea. They are also both volcanic, and the 

 centres.of the great volcanic actions in the east and 

 the west. In the present state of our knowledge, 

 it is impossible to say that the atmospheric currents 

 have any connexion with the last-mentioned circum- 

 stances ; but the fact is worth bearing in mind, and 

 may lead to some important result. The atmosphere 

 is the grand messenger of the whole globe, bearing 

 heat and moisture, regulating the action of these, and 

 therefore highly influential in all that the different 

 regions present or produce. But the philosophy of 

 it is as yet in mere embryo ; and the facts to be ob- 

 served are so many, and the generalisation of them 

 requires so much care and judgment, that the man 

 who shall stand upon the basis of inductive truth, 

 and tell the world all the wonders of its working, is 

 not yet born. 



We should now proceed to show how the same 

 properties of the atmosphere work on the local and 

 the minute : how the lake and the dry common, the 

 stream and the meadow, the copse and the field, and 

 even the field which is under crop and that which is 

 bare, work together ; but the subject has already 

 beguiled us to the full extent that we can spare ; 

 wherefore we must refer for some of the details to 

 the general remarks introductory to the accounts of 

 those vertebrated animals, which are characteristic of 

 peculiar localities, and close this desultory article by 

 recommending every one who wishes to know nature 

 on the grand scale, carefully to study the atmosphere. 



ATOMARIA (Marsham). A minute genus of 

 coleopterous insects, belonging to the family Xyluphaga 

 of Latreille, Engidae of MacLeay, or Corticaridce of 

 Curtis. In this genus are included some of the most 

 minute species of beetles, scarcely any of them 

 exceeding the twenty-fourth part of an inch in length ; 

 and yet in these atom forms, which would be almost 

 destroyed by the fall of a pin's head, we find the same 

 beautiful organisation, the same number of parts and 

 joints, and are consequently warranted in supposing 

 a perfectly similar disposition in the internal organ- 

 isation which is found in the giant stag beetles, or 

 the still more gigantic hercules or elephant beetles. 

 It has been much the fashion to regard every thing 

 coming from the French as at least tinctured with 

 infidelity ; we have, therefore, the greater pleasure in 

 quoting the words of that distinguished French 

 entomologist, who had fairly won for himself the title 

 of " Entomologorum princcps" the late Latreille : - 



