Dr. Robert Brown, when on Flinders' voyage, collected many interesting insects which were described by Kirby in the 12th volume of the Linnean Transactions.* Several specimens were deposited by this celebrated botanist in the British Museum. We find Dr. Leach commencing the description of New Holland insects in his Zoological Miscellany; and Macleay in his Horae Entomologicae described many curious Lamellicornes. Since that time the communication with the great South Continent has been so uninterrupted that collections have been continually coming to Europe, and scarcely a ship now arrives without some additions being made to this branch of science.
(*Footnote. Volume 12 1818 pages 454 to 478. A description of several new species of Insects collected in New Holland by Robert Brown, Esquire, F.R.S. etc., by the Reverend W. Kirby, M.A., F.R.S. etc. 33 species described, 13 figured on tab. 23. Mr. Kirby, in his century of Insects published in the same volume, described 17 New Holland species, and in the same celebrated paper founded four new genera upon Australasian Insects, Adelium, Rhinotia, Eurhinus and Rhinaria. He would have described other genera but for his fear of interfering with Germar's labours on the Curculionidae. N.B. Strongylium chalconotum is from Brazil and not from Australasia as indicated.)
The French voyages of discovery under Freycinet,* Duperrey, D'Urville, and Laplace have contributed very much to extend our knowledge of the Natural History of the Southern islands, as the publication of the History of the Voyages of the Uranie, Coquille, Astrolabe, and Favorite, amply testify; we are more especially indebted to Admiral D'Urville, who seems to unite the seemingly incompatible duties of commander of an expedition with an enthusiastic love of and search after insects. M. Guerin-Meneville published the Annulose animals of the Voyage de la Coquille, in which New Holland genera and species take a prominent place. Dr. Boisduval described those collected on the expedition of the Astrolabe, he also published the first Fauna Entomologica of New Holland and the Pacific; in his two volumes he gives a synoptical description of all the species he met with in the Parisian collections, indicating also such as he found in books whether he had seen the specimens or not. More detailed descriptions are looked for on some future occasion by the entomologists of this country from the learned and talented author of so many well-known works.
(*Footnote. Voyage autour du monde etc. sur les corvettes de S.M. l'Uranie et la Physicienne 1817 a 1820 Paris 1824 Partie Zoologie. Freycinet's Voyage, but for the lamentable shipwreck of one of his vessels, would have added much to our acquaintance with the Natural History of the places visited. Messrs. Quoy and Gaymard, Medecins de l'expedition, published the Zoological part of their notes. They refer with regret to the disastrous accident which deprived them of large collections of Insects made more particularly in the environs of Port Jackson. They describe and figure but one insect from New Holland (Curculio lemniscatus from Shark Bay) a spider from Port Jackson (Aranea notacautha Quoy, Dolophones notacantha Walckenaer Apt. 1 383) in which the brown callosities at the end of the cylindrical abdomen were taken for eyes, a position rectified by Walckenaer as above and by Kirby in his Bridgewater Treatise where he gives a copy of the French figure of this singular spider--Two Crustacea, one (Ocypode convexus) from Dirk Hatterick's and the other (Pagurus clibanarius) from Shark Bay, are all the Annulose animals described or figured as coming from New Holland, from the pitiable circumstance above alluded to.)
The figures and descriptions of Guerin, though fewer in number, are more detailed than those of Dr. Boisduval, who was much limited for space.
It would take up too much time to give a tithe of the names of the entomologists who have described New Holland insects* as nearly every working student of insects abroad and at home has added to the list.
(*Footnote. The entomologist who would attempt to do this must give a Universal Entomological Bibliography, as scarcely a Journal or volume of Transactions of any Scientific Society appears without containing fewer or more species from the great Australasian Continent and its islands.)
Messieurs Audouin, Blanchard, and Boisduval will shortly publish descriptions of the insects etc. collected on D'Urville's last voyage. Latreille, Dejean, Schoenherr, and Klug must be specially particularized; Gory, Percheron, Chevrolat, Aube, Serville, Reiche, Spinola, Fischer, and Mannerheim have all more or less added to our acquaintance with the species. Many New Holland Arachnida and Pacific Ocean Crustacea have been described in the well-known works of the Baron Walckenaer and Dr. Milne Edwards. In this country Kirby, Hope, Curtis, G.R. Gray, Waterhouse, Shuckard, Newman, and Westwood have been the principal scientific men who have attended to species of annulosa. Bennett, Mr. Surgeon Hunter, Darwin and Major Mitchell, when opportunities offered, collected many species and neglected not the subject of their habits; the last-mentioned having also described (specifically) one or two species in his interesting work. Macleay's Appendix to Captain King's voyage* is universally known.
(*Footnote. King (Captain Philip P., R.N., F.R.S. etc.) Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia performed between the years 1818 and 1822 2 volumes London 1827. Appendix Catalogue of Insects collected by Captain King, R.N., 192 species of Annulosa, 188 Insects, 4 Arachnida pages 438 to 469; "eighty-one of the species are new." In this paper Macleay institutes a Curculionidous genus near Phalidura, which he names Hybauchenia, the type being H. nodulosa. Carpophagus type C. Banksiae "would probably with Linnaeus have been a Bruchus." Megamerus "has an affinity to Sagra, but differs from that genus in having setiform antennae, porrect mandibles, and securiform palpi, its habit is also totally different, and more like that of some of those insects which belong to the heterogeneous magazine called Prionus; it is undoubtedly the most singular and novel form in Captain King's collection." Type M. kingii.)
Curtis and Haliday have published and are engaged in publishing the description of Annulosa collected by Captain King, while those collected by Mr. Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle have been entrusted to Mr. Waterhouse, who has published descriptions of some in the Entomological Society's Transactions and in the Annals of Natural History. Hope's papers in the Zoological Transactions and the Coleopterist's Manual are well known, as are Mr. Newman's in different Magazines and Annals. We rejoice to see in a late number of a small periodical sheet exclusively devoted to Entomology* and edited by this gentleman a letter from Mr. Davis, containing some interesting information regarding the insects of Adelaide; and in the same periodical there are many New Holland insects described. Much may be expected from Messrs. Macleay and Swainson, both at present in the South Sea islands, and it is to be hoped that in a short time the fruits of their researches will be before the public. Mr. Gould collected many insects on his Ornithological expedition to New Holland, descriptions of which, from the pen of the Reverend F.W. Hope, may shortly be looked for.