JOURNAL OP ENTOMOLOGY. 



No. IV.— December, 1861. 



XVII. — On certain Col eoptera from St. Helena. By T. Vernon 

 Wollaston, M.A., F.L.S. 



Any material from so remote a spot as St. Helena, which is about 

 1200 miles from the nearest point of the African coast, must of 

 necessity prove highly interesting, — more particularly to the geo- 

 graphical naturalist, for whom a more isolated field could scarcely 

 perhaps be found. True it is that the island must have greatly 

 deteriorated, in a scientific point of view, during the last 300 years, 

 since hut few traces of the forests now remain which are said to have 

 clothed it at its discovery; nevertheless in the small parts which 

 are still left untouched, and have escaped the ruthless hand of 

 " civilization," some glimpses of its ancient glory may doubtless be 

 discerned; and from the general character of these '•'fragmentary 

 remains " we must needs build up our estimate, as correctly as we 

 can, of the primeval forms with which this little oasis of the mid- 

 Atlantic was originally stocked. In the present paper I do not 

 intend to make any allusion to the stray insects which have been 

 recorded, from time to time, by other naturalists from this distant 

 rock, — most of which, like the Calosoma Helenas (brought from thence 

 by Mr. Darwin, and described by the Eev. F. W. Hope), are peculiar 

 to it ; but, having lately received from my friend Mr. Bewicke of 

 Madeira a most important batch of 14 species, collected by himself 

 (whilst touching there, en route from the Cape, on the 21st of July 

 last), during two or three hours' research "amongst indigenous 

 woods on the extreme summit* of the island," I propose merely to 



* By reference to an encyclopaedia, it would appear that St. Helena rises 

 abruptly from the Atlantic, and attains an elevation (at its highest point) of 

 about 2700 feet above the sea. 



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