898 Insects. 



Calosoma Sycophanta as a prize, it is needless to add how much 

 this " amor habendi" is increased ! 



It was with such a prospect as this that 1 started from Clovelley at 

 the commencement of last summer to spend five days on the island. 



An unentomological friend, but who had a sufficient knowledge of 

 the science to distinguish some of our rarer and larger species, as- 

 sured me that he was present at the capture of three specimens of 

 this rare insect, and that for three-pence each he had the refusal of 

 them. This happened on an occasion, a few years ago, when a party 

 of pleasure had been made up to visit the island, the three specimens 

 in question having been accidentally picked up by a man who was 

 evidently no connoisseur, for (if I rightly understood my friend), upon 

 the whole party exclaiming in their innocence against the " outrageous 

 charge," the man, in a fit of indignation, rather than lower his price, 

 set them all at liberty ! 



Having been collecting for some months in Devonshire, and for the 

 previous fortnight along the whole line of coast which faces the 

 island, I naturally expected to meet with the same species, and was 

 not a little surprised to find them entirely different. For instance, 

 Cicindela maritima, Nebria complanata, Simplocaria semistriata, 

 iEgialia globosa, Anomala Frishii, Hypera dissimilis, Philopedon 

 geminus, Cleonus nebulosus, Macrocnema marcida, Chrysomela 

 haemoptera, Phylan gibbus, &c, &c, which occur in actual profusion 

 on the opposite shore, I could not find so much as an example of, 

 whereas insects which I had never observed in any part of Devon- 

 shire, and which, if they exist at all, are undoubtedly exceedingly 

 rare, were here in abundance, The common Cetonia aurata is a 

 remarkable instance of this ; an insect which, however, appears to 

 frequent most of the islands off our coast. In the Scilly Islands it is 

 most abundant. An object well worth the attention of a naturalist, 

 and which, when once seen, can certainly never be forgotten, is the 

 innumerable quantity of sea-fowl which swarm by tens of thousands 

 in every part of the island, and create at times a confusion and din 

 which it has seldom been my lot to witness. Hawks, puffins, cor- 

 morants and gulls, were amongst the most conspicuous ; and, hap- 

 pening to be there shortly after the young ones were hatched, I had 

 an opportunity of getting close enough to see them to advantage. 

 They sat by myriads on the ledges of the rocks facing the sea, and 

 were, in some instances, packed so closely together, that by rolling 

 large stones over the edges of the cliffs, they might be killed by 

 wholesale. 



