tÇ.^ûnfdcCÀ/deZ'eù& iÂiSr
AND PORTO SANTO. 75
on the beach; I looked carefuffy under the fins for parasitical
crabs, but fpund none: the squalus zygcena is common, and eaten.
Only five indigenous plants appeared to characterize the vegetation
of the immediate environs; thé Verbena officinalis, oxalis luteola,
bidens radiata, calendula officinalis, and solanurn pubescens; the
leaves of the latter are applied to cuts by the peasantry. To
these may be added the datura metel (introduced and naturalized),
the tropeeolum majus and raphanus sativus, which have probably
strayed from the gardens. There being nothing better to engage
my attention, I commenced a hunt after insects, but having no net,
I caught but few; among them, were what appeared to me to
be a new species of bcusta and gryllus, fig. 21, if not of agrion and
iulus. Specific descriptions of the 46,000 insects already known,
(to say nothing of the 4000 birds) could not be very conveniently
comprised in the library of an African traveller. But those I
found are all drawn, and maybe referred to by the Entomologist.
The bee of Madeira is evidently a different species to that of
Europe, and seems to be the link between it and the Senegal
bee, imperfectly described in a memoir of Latreilles, from a specimen
brought home by Adanson, but in too bad a state to be
figured1. One of the spiders may be a new species of mygale;
but the most curious I met with, is an arachney, which does not
spin any web, but retires into a small round hole with its prey ;
it apparently fascinates the fly, then jumps upon it, remains sucking
it for some time, and at length carries it away.
* Colour black ; head, body, and legs, nearly covered with light yellowish brown
hairs, forming stripes of that colour between each band and division of the body.
» Fig. 24, body brown; head black, with a white speck; eyes set all round the head;
a few scattered hairs on the head and legs. Also an arachne of a pale bright green ;
fig. 23, the last joint of each claw, pale brown; eyes set in the form of a crescent; an
oblong semicircle of dark brown on the back; and four little spôts' of the same
colour. L 2