364 NATURAL HISTORY OP AFRICA. 



African forms which have their centre of dominion in the 

 burning deserts. Along the Mediterranean shores, the 

 traveller may study the habits of many curious insects be 

 longing to the genera Mygale, Onilis, Cebrio, Pimelia^ 

 Brachycerus, Brenhis, and Scarytes, and may also enrich hia 

 collection by the capture of many beautiful butterflies, and 

 other lepidopterous insects, which are more truly charac- 

 teristic of Northern Africa. Spain especially exhibits many 

 features of African zoology. The European entomologist 

 there finds, for the first time, several species of the following 

 genera : — Erodius, Sepidium, Zygia, Hemoptera, Galeodesj 

 BrachiniLS, and Pimelia. But it is only after crossing the Me- 

 diterranean, and traversing the African shores, whether north 

 of the Atlas, or eastward towards the coasts of the Red Sea, 

 that our eyes are delighted with the hitherto unknown forms 

 of Anthia, Graphipterusj Siagona, and numerous other spe- 

 cies unknown to the colder and moister shores of Europe. 



But no sooner do we leave the Mediterranean coasts of 

 Africa, and enter upon the more weary and disastrous pilgrim- 

 age of the great deserts, the apparently limitless expanse 

 of which so soon greets the eye of the yet undaunted tra- 

 veller, than almost all vestiges of European life, whether 

 human or brute, disappear ; and Nubia, Ethiopia, Senegal, 

 and a great part of Guinea exhibit entomological forms, 

 cognate in character when compared among themselves, but 

 separated, in every sense of the words, " longo intervallo," 

 from those of Europe. As we proceed further southwards, 

 where the chariot of the " Great Apollo" rolls on with a 

 still fiercer and more fiery lustre, and the beams of a verti- 

 cal sun induce even the tawny Moor and the woolly-headed 

 negro to avoid his scorching and sometimes fatal rays, we 

 discover many extraordinary forms of insect Ufe, called into 

 existence through the instrumentality of that bright efful- 

 gence which the pale-faced European has so often sought 

 to withstand in vain. From the burning regions of Guinea, 

 and the parched shores of the Congo, we derive the finest 

 of those magnificent coleopterous insects, named generically 

 Goliathus, by Lamarck. The western and equinoctial parts 

 of Africa also yield us the species of Petalocheirus and jBn- 

 celadus ; while the Cape of Good Hope is remarkable for 

 the genus Anthia and Brachyccrus. The last named district 

 is almost the exclusive domain of Manticora and Pneumora 



