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 Saulcj 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 Phytopliages 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 v/ith 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 Barmeister and 
Schonherr, in their great works on the Lamellicornes and Curculionidcs, 
have of course described many which fell within the scope of their subject ; 
