Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley - Volume 2 by John MacGillivray (best books to read for knowledge .txt) 📕

BY ADAM WHITE, ESQUIRE, F.L.S., ASSISTANT ZOOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT, BRITISH MUSEUM.

Among the very numerous Insects and Crustacea, collected by Mr. Macgillivray during the voyage of the Rattlesnake, the following have been selected for illustration; references to and descriptions of some of the Diptera, Homoptera, and Hemiptera, collected by him, have appeared in the Catalogues of the British Museum drawn up hy Messrs. Walker and Dallas, while the names and descriptions of others will appear in catalogues in preparation. A fine species of the class Crustacea, discovered by him, has been described and figured in the Illustrated Proceedings of the Zoological Society. (Cancer [Galene] dorsalis, White.)

INSECTS. COLEOPTERA.

Chrysodema pistor, Laporte and Gory. Buprestidae, t. 6, f. 33.

Habitat: Australia (Cape Upstart). Mr. Macgillivray informs me, that the specimens of this species were observed by him coming out of a dead tree (Casuarina).

Pachyrhynchus stanleyanus.* Tab. 4 fig. 1, 2.

(*Footnote. In memoriam Owen Stanley, in classe Britannica Navarchi, species haec distincta et peculiaris nominatur.)

Pachyrhynchus nigerrimus, maculis parvis squamosis plurimis viridiscenti-albidis.

Habitat: Pariwara Islands, New Guinea. Four specimens.

Head between the eyes somewhat rugose, some of the rugose punctures with pale greenish white scales; an abbreviated longitudinal impressed line down the front. Beak short and thick (somewhat as in Pachyrhynchus cumingii, Waterhouse). Thorax irregularly and somewhat coarsely punctured, the sides somewhat wrinkled in front, the punctures scaled, a triangular depression on the posterior part of thorax, the bottom is covered with scales, at least in some specimens, and there are three spots similarly scaled and placed somewhat transversely: the Elytra with eight to ten punctured lines, running somewhat irregularly, especially towards the sides, each elytra with ten, twelve, or more spots of scales, arranged longitudinally in spots on the sides, and largest towards the end. Underside of the mesothorax and metathorax with many greenish scales. Legs thick, polished, and with scattered grey hairs proceeding from the punctures.

I have named this somewhat mourning Pachyrhynchus after Captain Owen Stanley and his father, the late venerable Bishop of Norwich and President of the Linnean Society. Both of these gentlemen were fond of natural history, especially the father, who was a good observer of the habits of birds. The son, Captain Owen Stanley, was an accurate, though not very practised draughtsman; and I recollect with pleasure his pointing out to me, at one of the soirees at Brook Street, a volume of sketches (coloured) made by him on one of his voyages, in which objects of natural history were ably introduced. He encouraged natural history researches.

HYMENOPTERA.

Trigonalys compressus. Smith. Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. n. ser. 1. p. -- pl. 16. f. 2.

Sphex compressa. De Geer. Mem. 3.

Trigonalys bipustulatus. Smith (olim) Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. 7 1851.

Habitat: Nest of Polistes lanio. Brazil.

Among the Hymenoptera, few genera have created greater dispute than the anomalous genus Trigonalys of Westwood. Mr. Macgillivray one day brought to the British Museum the nest of a Brazilian Polistes. My friend, Mr. Frederick Smith, is well known for his profound knowledge of the Hymenoptera, Exotic and British, which, though he has studied them ONLY fourteen years, are better known to him, perhaps, than to any other living Entomologist; the instant that he looked at the nest, he exclaimed, "Why, here is Trigonalys!" and certainly a large, black-headed creature, not very like Polistes, protruded from one of the cells. Mr. Smith, on the 7th April, 1851, communicated this piece of information to the Entomological Society of London, and in their Transactions his brief memoir was lately printed. I cannot do better than give it in Mr. Smith's own words. Mr. Smith, subsequently to the reading of the paper, ascertained that the species had been described in the great work of De Geer, a book of which it would be well to have a condensed new edition. Mr. Smith says:

"John Macgillivray, Esquire, Naturalist to Her Majesty's Ship Rattlesnake, lately presented to the British Museum the nest of a South American species of Polistes, which he says is very abundant at St. Salvador, where even in the streets it attaches its nest under the eaves of houses; the species is the Polistes lanio of Fabricius, and in all probability the Vespa canadensis of Linnaeus; a specimen of the species is preserved in the Banksian Cabinet. On examining the nest, I found it consisted as usual of a single comb of cells, having in the centre at the back a short footstalk, by which the nests are attached in their position; the comb contained sixty-five cells, the outer ones being in an unfinished state, whilst twenty-two of the central ones had remains of exuviae in them, and one or two closed cells contained perfect insects ready to emerge; about half a dozen of the wasps had the anterior portion of their bodies buried in the cells, in the manner in which these insects are said to repose. In one cell I observed the head of an insect evidently of a different species, it being black and shining. On extricating it, I discovered it to be a species of Trigonalys; I subsequently carefully expanded the insect, and it proved to be the Trigonalys bipustulatus, described by myself in the Ann. and Mag. of Natural History, volume 7 2nd Series, 1851, from a specimen captured at Para by Mr. Bates, now in the possession of William Wilson Saunders, Esquire. The insect was not enveloped in any pellicle, nor had the cell been closed in any way; the wings were crumpled up at its side, as is usual in Hymenopterous insects which have not expanded them, proving satisfactorily that it had never quitted the cell, and that Trigonalys is the parasite of Polistes.

"This discovery is one of much interest, proving the relationship of the insect to be amongst the pupivora, to which family it had been previously assigned by Mr. Westwood, see Volume 3 Ent. Transactions page 270. The specimen is seven lines in length, entirely black, the head shining, the thorax and abdomen opaque, and having two white maculae touching the apical margin of the basal segment above; the wings are smoky, the antennae broken off. Of one of them I found subsequently seventeen joints-the perfect insect in the possession of Mr. Saunders having twenty joints."

LEPIDOPTERA.

Drusilla myloecha, Tab. 4 fig. 3, 4.

This fine butterfly* was found flying in considerable plenty in the woods of one of the islands of the Louisiade Archipelago; it forms a very interesting addition to a genus, of which but few species are known, and is allied to the Drusilla catops of Dr. Boisduval, described and figured in the Voyage de l'Astrolabe. The upper sides of the wings of the Drusilla myloecha are of pure white with a silky lustre, the front edge of the fore wings margined with deep brown both above and below; in the male there is a slender white line on the upper side running close to the edge, and extending beyond the middle of it; the two discoidal veins in the male are brown on the upper side, and the edge of the upper side of the lower wings is brown. The under side of the lower wings has a dark brown band at the base, widest close to the attachment of the wing and narrowing to a large ocellus which it surrounds in the form of a narrow brown ring; the black ocellus has a very small white pupil with a slight bluish crescent on the inside, and is surrounded by a fulvous ring; thcre is a second black ocellus nearer the hind edge than the middle, with a small white pupil and a wideish fulvous ring, separated from the white of the wing by a narrow brown ring; head, antennae, legs, and thorax in front brown; palpi fulvous.

The figures are of the size of nature, and carefully drawn by Mr. Wing.

(*Footnote. Described (but not figured) by Mr. Westwood, in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, New Series, Volume 1 page 175 1851, from Mr. M.'s specimens in the British Museum. Mr. W. felt anxious to describe this striking Drusilla.)

Eusemia mariana, Tab. 4 fig. 5.

E. alis coerulescenti-nigris; anticis albo-fasciatis et maculatis, posticis croceo-maculatis.*

(*Footnote. Filiae meae "Marian Frances White," speciem hanc pulchram d.d. descriptor.)

Upper wings black, with a slight bluish tinge; a wide band extends across the wing before the middle; it is white with a slight yellowish tint, at the lower edge of the wing it is abruptly narrowed; behind the middle of the wing, and between it and the tip, are from five to six pale yellowish white spots, the four or five outermost the smallest, and one or two of them sometimes obsolete; between the base and the band a narrow bluish grey line extends across the wing, and behind the band, at an equal distance, there is another short, waved, bluish grey line running down to the inner margin. The margins of the band and spots are bluish grey. The lower wing is narrowly black at the base, with a transverse band of a king's yellow colour; this is the widest on the inner edge, near its outer end there is an angular black spot; the apical half of the wing is black, with numerous king's yellow spots arranged in two lines, two spots about the middle connected and notched with black. Head, thorax, and base of abdomen black, rest of abdomen of a king's yellow colour.

Mr. Macgillivray took two specimens of this fine species. One flew on board when the ship was to the north of Cape Weymouth; the other was taken at Cape York: the figure is of the natural size.

Cocytia durvillii, Boisd. Monog. des Zygenides, t. 1, fig. 1.

This is an abundant species in the Louisiade Archipelago, flying on shore in the daytime among trees (as D'Urville remarked it did in New Guinea); and it frequently came on board the Rattlesnake, even when distant from the shore two or three miles. It flies heavily like a moth, and is easily caught. This beautiful insect is one of the finest found by Mr. Macgillivray. Only three specimens are recorded: those discovered by Admiral d'Urville, and described by Dr. Boisduval; Mr. M. brought home two, deposited with the rest of his collection in the British Museum.

CRUSTACEA. MALACOSTRACA: DECAPODA.

Ommatocarcinus macgillivrayi. Tab. 5 fig. 1.

Carapace more than twice as wide as long; the sides in front extended into a long slightly bent spine. The frontal portion between the pedicles of the eyes is narrow, much as in Macrophthalmus, it slopes down towards the mouth, and is deeply notched at the sides for the reception of the eyes; the fore-edge is doubly notched in the middle, there being a slight tooth between the emarginations. The epistome not so prominent as the lower margin of the orbit; the inner antennae, with the basal joint, long (the others broken off). The eye-pedicles very long and cylindrical, thickest at the base, slightly bent, somewhat thickened towards the end, so long, that, when bent back, the eye extends a little beyond the end of the spine. Mouth formed nearly as in Gonoplax, the third joint of the jaw-feet wider than long. Abdomen seven-jointed, the first joint scarcely visible, shaped much as in Gonoplax, but rather wider, the base of the terminal joint longer than the sides. Anterior legs two and a half times as long as the Carapace, measuring it from spine to spine, the arm long and triangular, the upper portion more or less thickly covered with small papillae, and having a nearly obliterated spine about the middle; the wrist smooth, roundish, with a large blunt tooth on the inside; hands somewhat flattened, widest at the base of the claws, with