M. Belanger's Collections. 



95 



chain of existence, and even fill up voids which to this 

 time have existed amongst their congeners. We mention 

 particularly the Palalepta levigata^ Guer. of the Coromandel 

 coast; the Oryctes martabani, id; the Popilia Maculata, id. 

 of Java ; the Gnoma atomarta^ id. of the Coromandel coasts ; 

 the Lania carceliiy id. of Java ; Scutellera Reynaudii^ id. 

 of the same country ; the Cercopis viridans, id. ; the Mega- 

 chile rujiventri, id. ; and the Odynerus dimidiatus, id. of the 

 coast of Coromandel ; the Apis zonata^ id. of the same 

 country, where they form hives of a curious construction of 

 the most compact clay ; and, lastly, of the Agarista Belan- 

 geri, id. of Java. 



Such are the contributions to Zoology, which we owe to 

 our colleague M. Isidore GeofFroy Saint Hilaire, and to 

 MM. Lesson, Valenciennes, Deshayes, and Guerin, for 

 the part which they have taken in the elucidation of the 

 collections of M. Belanger in Persia and the East Indies. 

 Assuredly, the arrangements to prevent the collections from 

 being lost, could not have been confided to better hands. 

 Yet it is to be regretted, that the first author of these tra- 

 vels, he who with so much labour collected the materials 

 and the documents, which afford the subject of this collec- 

 tion, should be so faintly identified with the publication ; but 

 all that those who have performed the part of his colla- 

 borateurs could do, was to give his name to new species 

 in all the various orders. Be it as it may, science has 

 derived from this portion of the travels of M. Belanger, 

 an acquaintance with six new genera, and four hundred 

 and twenty-three new species of Persia and India, and in 

 these species, as in the genera, there are some which supply 

 important places. An atlas, consisting of forty plates, re- 

 markable for their execution, represent forty-nine of the 

 most curious and novel species described in the body of 

 the work, rendering it still more valuable to naturalists. 

 This atlas is equal in the value of its contents to any of the 



