304 jg 



Art. XXVIII.— Varieties. 



9. — Locality of certain forms in Natural History. — " It is 

 very remarkable that, in the production of certain forms of the 

 animal and vegetable kingdom, nature should be so closely tied 

 down to localities — a circumstance which we are as yet unable 

 to account for. The forests of Brazil abound with hideous 

 amphibia and innumerable insect tribes. It is impossible to 

 touch the branch of a tree, or the leaf of a plant, without dis- 

 turbing beetles or other insects ; but in Oahoo, as in the other 

 islands of the South Seas, there is the greatest paucity of insects. 

 In vain we examine the under-surface of the leaves, — in vain 

 we shake the trees, — no insects fall down ; we, however, meet 

 with snails of very pretty forms, and often of brilliant colours ; 

 sometimes striped very regularly, and a good deal like our 

 Helix nemoralis ; sometimes entirely grass - green, which 

 colour they however lose when dead, and which can have been 

 communicated to the shell only by the animals having subsisted 

 on green leaves. Instead of insects, nature has, in the 

 Sandwich Islands, placed millions of land-snails upon the 

 trees, while she has observed a medium in the Indian isles. 

 There, as for instance at Manilla, she has assigned to vege- 

 tation partly land-snails and partly insects — both frequently of 

 enormous size and the most brilliant colours. There is a 

 great variety in the size, colour, and form of the land-snails of 

 the Sandwich Islands. Mr. Von Chamisso has already de- 

 scribed an Auricula Owaihiensis, and an Auricula sinistrorsa; 

 and Mr. Green, an Achatina Stewartii, and an Achatina 

 Oahnensis, besides several new kinds brought back by the 

 French naturalists and ourselves. It is a curious circum- 

 stance, that the greater number of these snails are sinister ; 

 while among us, and in all other parts, this deviation is very 

 rare; — nay, there are some kinds of the species Achatina, 

 which seem to occur only sinister in the island of Oahoo." — 

 Meyer s Voyage Round the World. 



10. Hermaphrodite specimen of Polyommatus Alexis. — 

 A specimen of this pretty little butterfly has been taken at 

 Deptford, with the wings on one side bright blue, on the other 

 brown ; in one instance possessing all the characters of the 

 male, in the other, all those of the female. Such an individual 

 has been figured in the last number of the Annates de la 

 Socie/e Entomologique de France. E. N. D. 



