On the Microscopic Life of the Island of St. Paul. 3538 
have done. Independently, therefore, of this primary distinc- 
tion (which of itself would be sufficient to separate them), I may 
just add that the C. spretus may be known from its ally by (on 
the average) its slightly larger bulk and rather darker hue; by 
its prothorax being perhaps a little less rounded at the sides, 
and its elytra a little more so; and by the latter being just per- 
ceptibly more convex and opake, with their basal line somewhat 
straighter. 
Whilst the C. barbatus is apparently confined to Grand Ca- 
nary, the present species has been observed only in Hierro, 
where several specimens of it were captured by Mr. Gray and 
myself during our visit to that island in February 1858. 
XXXIX.—On the Microscopic Life of the Island of St. Paul, in 
the Southern Ocean. By Professor Eurenserc*. 
Oases in great deserts, and islands of difficult access in the di- 
stant ocean, often fill the naturalist with a longing desire for a 
knowledge of the forms of life existing on them. It seems as if 
something of a virgin nature—something primeval, and not 
yet profaned by man—might possibly be retained there, the 
knowledge of which might enable us to see more deeply into the 
original manifestations of life on our planet. On the other hand, 
the expectation at least will be excited of finding, together and 
connected in isolated spots, certain natural variations of a sim- 
pler type of life, which elsewhere have been altered by innu- 
merable opportunities of intermixture, until the original forms 
have become unrecognizable. It is with a feeling of devotion, 
with a beating heart, that the naturalist, whether young or old, 
approaches such localities as are closed to common intercourse, 
regarding them in the light of something sacred. Experience 
and the quietude of advancing years cool many a warm hope ; 
but the idea constantly awakens freshly that on some distant 
island some treasure of this kind is to be found,—just as New 
Holland has retained its Marsupial Mammals, and New Zealand 
and Madagascar their gigantic birds—living in the one case, 
in the others scarcely dead. 
The small Island of St. Paul, situated in the midst of the 
Southern Ocean, at nearly an equal distance (3000 nautical miles) 
from the Cape of Good Hope and Adelaide in New Holland, 
which was first discovered and named by Antonio Van Diemen, 
in 1633, as the southernmost of the two islands of Amsterdam 
- * Translated from the ‘Monatsbericht der Berliner Akademie der Wis- 
senschaften,’ December 1861, p. 1085. 
