50 Bibliographical Notices. 



Genus Prosopis. 

 Prosopis mioctus. 



Female (length 2^ lines) black ; the clypeus cream-coloured ; 

 the tubercles and tegulse white ; the wings white, hyaline ; all 

 the tarsi pale ferruginous ; the pubescence on the posterior legs 

 white ; the margins of the abdominal segments testaceous ; the 

 disk of the thorax is very smooth and shining. 



Hob. Ind. 



Although I have placed this insect in the genus Prosopis, I do 

 not feel quite satisfied that it belongs to it ; in the neuration of 

 the wings it exactly corresponds with that genus. I cannot ex- 

 amine the tongue, and the specimen described is much mutilated 

 and gummed to a piece of card, and is altogether in bad con- 

 dition. I have described it, believing it to be an Hylams, as it is 

 to me a new habitat for the genus. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica. By P. H. Gosse. 1851. 12mo. 

 Longman and Co. 



There are perhaps few parts of the world of whose natural pro- 

 ductions we know less than those of our own West Indian Colonies. 

 At first sight this may appear rather surprising, considering the 

 number of Europeans constantly residing in those beautiful islands ; 

 but as most of these regard the old country as their home, and their 

 sojourn in the West Indies only as a means of making money, they 

 are still, as in the time of Bancroft, " more attentive to the acqui- 

 sition of wealth than natural knowledge." Occasionally indeed some 

 clergyman or medical man does pay a little attention to the natural 

 objects which surround him ; but the number of these exceptions is 

 but small, whilst few of them ever do more for the preservation and 

 publication of their observations than the insertion of a notice of 

 some remarkable occurrence in one of the innumerable ' St. George's 

 Chronicles ' or ' Kingston Gazettes,' or an occasional article in one of 

 those red-covered almanacs, which, to European eyes, have such a 

 curiously exotic appearance. 



The natural history of Jamaica has once or twice engaged the at- 

 tention of naturalists and been made the subject of a special treatise, 

 but much remained to be done, — how much, the present delightful 

 volume, the result, or rather part of the result, of a "sojourn" of 

 only nineteen months in the island, will abundantly show. 



Mr. Gosse is too well known as an acute observer of nature, and 

 his reputation as an agreeable writer is too well established, to leave 

 much doubt in the minds of our readers that a book from his pen on 

 the natural history of Jamaica, perhaps the most beautiful of tropical 

 islands, will contain an abundance both of information and entertain- 



