200 
REVIEWS. 
county of Wicklow, by Mr. Tardy, of Dublin. For many years subsequently, It 
appears to have been altogether lost sight of, until detected by myself, in 1844, at 
Mount Edgecumbe, in Devonshire, and along the coast of Cornwall, westwards as far 
as Menabilly and Fowey. In the north of Devon I have likewise observed it, in the 
valley of the Lyn, though less abundantly than on the shores of the English Chan¬ 
nel. Thus skirting as it were the south-western extremity of our own country it 
passes over to Ireland, where it may be said to attain its maximum, attaching it¬ 
self to the trees (especially evergreens) in the mountains of Wicklow and Kerry 
(and probably in other districts equally), much to the detriment of the ancient tim¬ 
ber, in which its ravages, evidently for centuries, are but too conspicuous. Judging 
from the extent of the injury committed, it would seem to have been commoner 
formerly, and more generally diffused than now. At Killarney, I have been 
accustomed to mark its devastations for several years past, and had constantly 
met with traces of it under the form of detached elytra, and broken portions of its 
body, in the oldest trees ; but it was not until the summer of 1853, that a perfect 
specimen, captured by a friend in a decayed holly, at Dinas, came beneath my 
notice. Being thus warned of more than its past existence, we commenced a care¬ 
ful research during the following September, on Innisfallen, one of the islands of 
the Lower Lake, where we found it still ranging in profusion, and from whence I 
obtained a fine series of examples, averaging a somewhat larger size than the 
Devonshire and Cornish ones.’’ 
“ Whether or not this partial parallelism may be employed to further 
Professor Forbes’s theory of the quondam approximation, by means of a 
continuous land of the Kerry and Gallician hills, and of a huge miocene 
continent extending beyond the Azores, and including all these Atlantic 
clusters within its embrace, I will not venture to suggest; nevertheless, it 
is impossible to deny that, so far as the Madeiras betoken, everything 
would go to favour this grand and comprehensive idea. Partaking, in the 
main, of a Mediterranean fauna, the northern tendency of which is in 
evident direction of the south-western portions of Ireland and England, 
and with a profusion of endemic modifications of its own (bearing witness 
to the engorgement of this ancient tract, with centres of radiation created 
expressly for itself)—-whilst geology proclaims the fact that subsidences , on 
a stupendous scale, have taken place, by which means the ocean groups 
were constituted—we seem to trace out, on every side, records of the past, 
and to catch the glimpses, as it were, of a veritable Atlantis from beneath 
the waves of time, being well nigh tempted to inquire — 
‘ And though, fairest isle, 
In the daylight’s smile, 
Hast thou sunk in the boiling ocean, 
While beyond thy strand 
Rose a mightier land 
From the wave in alternate motion ? 
4 Are the isles that stud 
The Atlantic flood 
But the peaks of thy tallest mountains, 
While repose below 
The great waters’ flow 
Thy towns, and thy towers, and fountains ? 
