126 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



M. Kolenati, in his Meletemata, has also contributed to our knowledge of 

 this district. 



Passing round into Africa by the shores of the Mediterranean, we have 

 received from Messrs Reiche and Saulcy a considerable addition to our 

 knowledge of the entomology of Palestine, a district of which we knew 

 comparatively little. The materials from which this contribution has been 

 derived were collected during the expedition by M. de Saulcy, who, the 

 Society may recollect, published an interesting account of his visit to the 

 Dead Sea a few years ago. 



Continuing our course round the Mediterranean,- we find in Count Mot- 

 schoulsky's Etudes Entomologiques the description of a number of the 

 minuter Egyptian species overlooked by previous explorers. M. de Mot- 

 schoulsky has extended his travels into a good many districts both in the 

 Old and New World ; and, as he is an assiduous collector as well as a 

 rapid describer (too rapid, most entomologists think), we have a good 

 many species from his pen from all parts of the world. 



Continuing along the north coast of Africa, a number of new species 

 from Algeria have been described by M. Lucas ; but this applies less to the 

 Coleoptera than to some of the other orders. Madeira should come in here. 

 Mr Wollaston has published in the form of a catalogue, consisting of a 

 complete series of the species of Madeiran Coleoptera in the British Mu- 

 seum, presented by him to that institution, a number of new species 

 detected since the publication of his great work on the Insecta Ma- 

 derensia. He returned last summer, with an immense amount of 

 materials for a fauna of the Canary Isles ; but I grieve to say that 

 his state of health has been too bad to allow of his putting them into 

 shape. 



Little new has been recorded on the west coast of Africa until we come 

 to Old Calabar. My descriptions of new species from that district, which 

 by a sort of legal fiction have been read here, have gone on appearing in 

 the Annals of Natural History from time to time, as suited my own con- 

 venience. M. Chevrolat, to whom I confided the Longicornes, published 

 a century of new species, among which are some of singular beauty. Dr 

 Baly has also described some of the new genera of Phytophages in the 

 Annals of Natural History. 



Possibly, stimulated by the number of novelties sent home by our 

 friends in Old Calabar, and distributed among continental entomolo- 

 gists, two eminent entomologists resident in Paris, Count Mnizscheck and 

 Mr James Thomson, organised an expedition to the neighbouring territory 

 of Gaboon, and sent out M. Henry Deyrolle, son of the highly esteemed 

 dealer in Paris, on an expedition to that country. The results of his col- 

 lecting, at least those species which are new, are described in the second 

 volume of Mr Thomson's Archives. From his descriptions it appears that 

 a considerable number of our Old Calabar species are found in Gaboon, but 

 that a large proportion also is distinct ; and looking to the relative num- 

 ber of species found, I should say that our unpractised amateurs need not 

 hide their heads in point of collecting with this crack collector of Paris. 



To the south lies the kingdom of Angola, of whose Coleopteral fauna 

 little more is known than what is contained in Erichson's fauna of that 

 district, published in Wiegman's Archiv. in 1843. 



The next zoological district which meets us as we journey round Africa 

 is the Cape, and we may include under that head the whole coast from 

 the Cape itself north to Natal, both inclusive. A good fauna of the Cape 

 was greatly wanted. Several authors, as Klug, &c, had described a 

 certain portion of its Coleoptera ; and other authors, as Burmeister and 

 Schonherr, in their great works on the Lamellicornes and Curculionidm, 

 have of course described many which fell within the scope of their subject ; 



