The Zoologist — April, 1866, 158 



* Coleoptera Atlantidiim ; heivg an Enumeration of the Coleopterous 

 Insects of the Madeiras, Salvages and Canaries.'' By T. 

 Vernon WoLLASToN. London: Van Voorst, Paternoster Row. 

 1865. 660 pp. demy 8vo. 



Whatever Mr. Wollaston undertakes he does thoroughly ; no part 

 is neglected; nothing is slurred over on account of its difficulty; no 

 trouble is spared to make the whole complete : nothing that a fellow- 

 labourer has done is either ignored or looked down on from a magni- 

 ficent height, as if it really was not worth looking at. Another 

 character of Mr. VVollaston's labours is that they contain such 

 abundant evidence of thought; he is the Stuart Mill of Entomology, 

 and one of the very, very few entomologists who avail themselves of 

 the power of reflection in arriving at conclusions. It is perhaps a 

 general characteristic of the writing and speaking entomologist of 

 to-day that he reaches conclusions without passing through the slow 

 process of reasoning, just as Philacthus represents angels as visiting 

 earth without passing over the intermediate space. How often are 

 we not startled at deductions from nothing ! words and sentences that 

 have no base to rest on, reminding one of those creatures which I sup- 

 pose to have been once abundant from their multitudinous effigies in 

 paintings and on tombstones, that have wings to fly with and mouth 

 to talk with, but nothing to stand with, or, for matter of that, nothing 

 to sit with. As we progress in the act of sifting evidence these restless 

 beings seem to lose their reality, and it is more than probable that 

 those entomologists who write and talk on every subject without 

 thinking, will eventually, like the cherubs, lose their influence over 

 our imagination. 



There is one slight drawback to Mr. Wollaston's general style that 

 doubtless I have previously pointed out — the interruption which 

 occurs from the too frequent use of parentheses : these parenthetical 

 observations are always to the point, often invaluable, but might have 

 been introduced without interrupting the general arrangement of the 

 matter. I find that the best and most agreeable writers rarely avail 

 themselves of printers' contrivances, as parentheses, italics, notes of 

 admiration, and so forth, but trust to the natural and unembarrassed 

 expression of ideas which flow in a consecutive and uninterrupted 

 stream. Who is there that has not felt the disagreeable effects of a 

 carriage while occasionally passing over loose stones ou a road other- 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. I. X 



