ENTOMOLOGY. 



It may appear extraordinary, that an insect of this size and 

 brilliancy should have hitherto escaped the attention of every ento- 

 mological writer, since examples of the species are to be met with in 

 most cabinets of eminence, as well in this country as in other parts 

 of Europe, and yet it certainly is not to be found we believe, at this 

 time, in the work of any preceding author^ 



The period is within our knowledge, when this insect was 

 considered extremely rare y it had no place in the once celebrated 

 cabinet of Mr. Drury, the most estimable, with the exception of the 

 Banksian cabinet, at that time in this country. We then possessed 

 one specimen in our own cabinet, the subject delineated in our pre- 

 sent plate. There were also two specimens in the cabinet of Mr. 

 Francillon, and two others were arranged with the Curculiones in the 

 collection of Major General Davies, of Blackheath. Those were all, 

 we believe, that were to be found, at that time in the cabinets of 

 this country, nor was the species apparently then known upon the 

 continent, if we may form any just conclusion on that subject from 

 the silence of Fabricius ; for although he describes several very bril- 

 liant species of this splendid family, this particular species is nowhere 

 mentioned by him. Such are the local circumstances of the history of 

 our present insect till within about the last twenty years, when a large 

 consignment of them from Brasil, consisting of perhaps scarcely less 

 than two hundred specimens was produced among the duplicate 

 insects of Major General Davies. Those reserves had been treasured 

 together, as we understood, by that zealous collector for some years, 

 but were necessarily produced after his death with the rest of his 

 effects at the public sale. It will naturally be concluded, that 

 the production of such a host of those beautiful insects, enabled the 



