438 
NATURE 
[March 30, 1871 


Europe, we should expect to find that almost all the species have 
since become modified, and that these islands would offer us a 
larger proportion of highly specialised and ultra-indigenous 
forms than Madeira itself. The exact contrary, however, is the 
fact, for, out of more. than 200 species only about sixteen are 
peculiar. 
Taking the geodephagous group, the species of which, both 
Mr. Murray and Mr. Wollaston believe, are least liable to be 
introduced by man, we find that two only are peculiar, while six- 
teen are European. The Rhynchophora only equal the Geode- 
phaga in number of species, and seven of these are peculiar. 
Leaving out a large number of species which have, there is little 
doubt, been introduced through human agency, there remain 
more than 100 species identical with those of Europe and the 
Atlantic islands, while only fourteen are peculiar. These facts 
imply that the insects, as a whole, have been brought to the 
islands through natural causes, and that the process is probably 
still going on. On looking to Physical Maps for information, 
however, a difficulty appears ; for the ocean currents, as well as 
the prevalent regular winds, are all from the westward, while 
only four of the beetles are American, and these being all wood- 
borers, have no doubt been brought by the Gulf Stream where 
they have not been introduced by man. Fortunately, however, 
we have a means of getting over this difficulty ; for our member, 
Mr. F. Du Cane Godman, who has given us the most recent and 
accurate information on the natural history of these islands, in- 
forms us (in his paper on the birds of the Azores in the ‘‘ Ibis” 
for 1866) that the stormy atmosphere, to which we have seen 
that Madeira owesso many of its peculiarities, is still more 
marked a feature of the Azores, where violent storms from all 
points of the compass are frequent, and annually bring to their 
shores numbers of European birds. As a natural result of this 
constant influx, the birds of the islands are, all but two, of 
European species ; and, what is very important, they decrease 
in numbers from the eastern to the western islands of the group. 
This is just what we should expect if they are stragglers 
from the eastern continent ; but if they are the descendants 
of those which inhabited the country before its dismember- 
ment, there would be no meaning in such a diminution. 
Now we can hardly doubt that these same storms also bring 
Coleoptera and other insects to the Azores, though it may be 
more rarely and in smaller numbers than in the case of the birds ; 
and the large proportion of European species will then be very 
intelligible. The same explanation is suggested by the proportions 
of the most important groups, for while (after deducting all those 
species believed to have been introduced by man) the Geodephaga 
and Brachelytra are by far the most numerous, the Rhyncho- 
phora and the Heteromera are exceedingly few, a distribution 
which corresponds with their respective powers of flight. It is 
also a very important fact that only four non-introduced species 
can be traced to an American origin, while more than a hundred 
are European; since it shows of how little importance are ocean 
currents as a means of conveying insects over a wide extent of 
sea ; whereas the great mass of the non-introduced species have 
evidently passed through the air, aided by their powers of flight, 
for a distance of about a thousand miles from Europe. The 
Azorean Elateridze form a curious feature of its fauna, consider- 
ing that the whole family is almost absent from Madeira and the 
Canaries. Of the six species two are European (one specially 
Portuguese), so that they may have been introduced with living 
plants. Two are common South American species, probably 
introduced in the floating timber, though they may also have 
come with living plants, which are often brought from Bahia. 
Two species, however, are peculiar, and one is closely allied toa 
Brazilian species, so that it must have been introduced by natural 
agencies before the settlement of the island; the other is of a 
genus confined to Madagascar. 
Now it is asuggestive fact that the Mozambique current, bend- 
ing round the Cape of Good Hope to the Equator, is one of the 
sources of the Gulf Stream ; so that it is not impossible that a 
tree, carried down by a flooded river on the west coast of Mada- 
gascar, might ultimately reach the Azores. ‘Thatit should convey 
living larvae or pupze of Elaters may also not be impossible; and 
if such a log reached the Azores but once in ten thousand years, 
and but one log in a thousand should convey living Elaters, we 
should still, if the calculations of geologists have any approximate 
yalue whatever, be far within the epoch of existing genera, and 
even of most existing species. A relation so isolated and extra- 
ordinary as that between a single insect of the Azores and those 
of Madagascar, may well be due to a concurrence of events as 
rare and improbable as this seems to be. 




The Azores, and ina less degree the Madeiras, appear to me 
to teach us this important lesson in the laws of distribution of 
birds and insects—that it has been determined neither by the 
direction of ocean currents nor by that of the most prevalent 
winds, but almost wholly by such more exceptional causes as 
storms and hurricanes, which still continue to bring immigrants 
from the nearest lands. 


SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LONDON 
Zoological Society, March 21.—Mr. R. Hudson, F.R.S., 
in the chair. The Secretary read a report on the additions to 
the Society’s Menagerie during the month of February, 1871.— 
Mr. Sclater exhibited a skin of the Ceylonese Prima, recently 
spoken of by Mr. W. Vincent Legge in a communication to the 
Society, and now forwarded by that gentleman, which appeared 
to be identical with /. sociadis of continental India. —An eleventh 
letter was read from Mr. W. H. Hudson, on the ornithology of 
Buenos Ayres.—Dr. Hamilton communicated an extract from a 
letter received from China relating to the reproduction of a 
Chinese Deer, Hydropotes inermis,—Mr. Sclater read a paper on 
the Birds of Santa Lucia, West Indies, containing an account of 
a collection recently made in that island by the Rey. Mr. Semper, 
and forwarded to Mr. Sclater by Mr. G. W. des Veeux. Amongst 
these specimens were two examples of an /cferus, believed to be 
undescribed and proposed to be called 7. /audadilis.—Dr. R. O. 
Cunningham read a paper on some points in the anatomy of the 
**Steamer Duck,” AZicroplerus cinereus, based upon specimens 
of this bird obtained by him during his recent voyage as Natu- 
ralist to the Survey of the Straits of Magellan, A communica- 
tion was read from Mr. R. Swinhoe, containing a revised catalogue 
of the Birds of China and its islands. To this were added 
descriptions of new species, together with references to former 
notes and occasional remarks. 
Chemical Society, March 16.—Prof. Williamson, F.R.S., 
president, in the chair. Mr. C. H. Piesse was elected a fellow. 
Mr. C. H. Gill read a note ‘On the examination of Glucose 
containing Sugars.” It is known that coloured sugar solutions 
are decolourised and clarified by the addition of basic lead 
acetate before they are submitted to optical examination, Mr. 
Gill now found that the power of invert sugar to rotate a ray of 
polarised light is greatly altered by the presence of that reagent. 
The alteration takes place only on the levulose in the liquid, the 
dextrose suffers no change of optical properties. This alteration 
is not permanent—on removing the lead or acidifying the liquid 
the original rotatory power is restored. Mr. Gill employs these 
latter reactions in order to obtain correct numbers with the 
saccharometer. He uses a strong solution of sulphuric dioxide, 
which removes the lead, and at the same time bleaches the 
liquid, but is incapable of inverting cane sugar in the cold even 
in twenty-four hours. The presence of the lead salt in sugar 
solutions is also disadvantageous when the glucose has to be 
estimated by Fehling’s copper solution, as it partly becomes 
reduced, and thus necessitates the use of a greater volume of the 
saccharine solution; the removal of the lead does away with 
this source of error.—Mr, D. Howard made some remarks on 
the boiling point of a mixture of amylic alcoho] and water.— 
Mr. Perkin stated that he had succeeded in obtaining bro- 
macetic acid by gradual addition of bromine to heated acetic 
anhydride, boiling for some time, mixing with water and subse- 
quent distillation. —Mr. Warrington spoke briefly of an easy and 
sufficiently correct determination of ammonic sulphocyanide in 
commercial sulphate of ammonia. 
Entomological Society, March 20.—Mr. A. R. Wal- 
lace, president, in the chair. Prof. P, M. Duncan, F.R.S., 
and Mr. E. S, Charlton were elected members. The Rey. L. 
Jenyns, in a letter to Mr. Dunning, made some remarks on the 
statement of Mr. Bond, at the last November meeting, respecting 
the swarming of Ch/orops lineata in the Provost's Lodge at King’s 
College, Cambridge. Mr. Jenyns had a similar swarm in 1831, 
and occurring probably in the same room,—Mr. Verral exhibited ~ 
a fly, Pipiza noctiluca, from Perthshire, to the head of which a 
substance was adhering, probably the pollen-mass of an orchid. — 
Mr. Miiller exhibited a gall, in shape like a grain of wheat, on 
the leaves of a Carex, sent to him by Lord Walsingham from 
Thetford.—Mr. C. O. Waterhouse read a description of Apzero- 
cyclus honolulensis, a new genus and species of Lucanide from 
