208 
REVIEWS'. 
visited by strangers, and at altitudes where the fierce elements of winter shall give 
way, at last, to perpetual sunshine and the fresh breezes of a calmer sea. There is 
something amazingly luxurious in betaking oneself to tent life, after months of con¬ 
finement and annoyance (it may be entirely— partially it must be), in the heat and 
noise of Funchal. We are then, perhaps, more than ever open to the favourable 
impression of an Alpine existence ; and who can adequately tell the ecstacy of a 
first encampment on those invigorating hills ! To turn out, morning after morning* 
in the solemn stillness of aerial forests, where not a sound is heard, save, ever and 
anon, the woodman’s axe in some far-off tributary ravine, or a stray bird, hymning 
forth its matin song to the ascending sun; to feel the cool influence of the early 
dawn on the upland sward, and to mark the thin clouds of fleecy snow uniting 
gradually into a solid bank, affording glimpses the while, as they join and sepa¬ 
rate, of the fair creation stretched out beneath; to smell the damp, cool vapour, 
rising from the deep defiles around us, where vegetation is still rampant on pri¬ 
meval rocks, and new generations of trees are springing up, untouched by man, 
from the decaying carcases of the old ones ; to listen, in the still, calm, evening air, 
to the humming of the insect world (the most active tenants of these elevated 
tracts) 5 to mark, as the daylight wanes, the unnumbered orbs of night stealing, 
one by one, on to the wide arch of heaven, as brilliant as they were on the first 
evening of their birth—are the lofty enjoyments, all which the intellectual mind 
can grasp in these transcendant heights. It is needless, however, to pursue the 
picture further ; for it is impossible to do justice to what experience alone can enable 
us to appreciate ; and let not any one suppose that the varied objects and scenes of 
novelty, which administer to our superior feelings and charm the eye in these upland 
solitudes, are adapted only to the scrutiny of the naturalist, and are either beneath 
the notice of, or else cannot be sufficiently entered into by the general mass—for 
such is by no means the case. A single trial, we are convinced, will be more than 
enough to prove the reverse, provided the adventurer be not altogether insensible 
to perceptions from without, or incurious as to the workings of the external uni¬ 
verse around him. This, however, we need scarcely add, is a sine qua non ; for 
it has been well said, that u he who wondereth at nothing, hath no capabilities of 
bliss; but he that scrutinizeth trifles, hath a store of pleasure to his hand; and 
happy and wise is the man to whose mind a trifle existeth not 
But we must not forget to mention the plates which accompany this 
volume. They are thirteen in number, and are drawn by the masterly 
hand of Mr. J. 0. Westwood, and engraved by Mr. F. Smith. They 
represent, for the most part, those insects which have been discovered or 
described by Mr. Wollaston, with all the necessary dissections. When we 
regard the immense expense attending a work like the present, we must, 
indeed, consider that it was undertaken, as the author tells us, as a labour 
of love; and with the sole aim, within its prescribed limits, of arriving at 
the truth; and confidently, indeed, may he appeal to others to judge of the 
result of his labours. We could not expect that many local faunas would 
be published in the expensive style of the present one, nor would it, 
indeed, be desirable ; but we do hope that others will take example by Mr. 
Wollaston, and will add to the stock of our knowledge of natural science, 
by observations so carefully made, in situ , as these. 
The warmest thanks of entomologists are due to Mr. Wollaston for the 
publication of this work. They will find it to contain everything that a 
scholar and an indefatigable lover of nature could bring to bear upon their 
favourite science; and we think Mr. Wollaston entitled to take a high 
