DR SHARP'S "COLEOPTERA OF SCOTLAND" 155 



SUPPLEMENT TO DR SHARP'S "COLEOPTERA 



OF SCOTLAND." 



By Anderson Fergusson. 



Dr D. Sharp's " Coleoptera of Scotland " appeared in the 

 Scottish Naturalist from 1871 to 1882 as part of Dr F. 

 Buchanan White's Insecta Scotica, an essay to catalogue the 

 insects inhabiting Scotland, which also included lists of some 

 of the other groups of Scottish insects. The Catalogue of 

 Coleoptera was compiled from all the available sources then 

 existing, and Dr Sharp was assisted in his undertaking by 

 information received from the small group of Scottish 

 entomologists who took an interest in Coleoptera at that 

 time, among whom he mentioned Mr R. Hislop, Rev. Dr 

 Gordon, Dr F. B. White, and Mr J. Dunsmore. The previous 

 list of Scottish Coleoptera was Mr Andrew Murray's Catalogue 

 of the Coleoptera of Scotland (1853), and this catalogue was 

 also drawn upon by Dr Sharp, who, in acknowledging his 

 indebtedness to it, remarked that at the time of its publica- 

 tion it was considerably in advance of other entomological 

 works of the period. As was to be expected from the hands 

 of such an eminent authority on the subject, the Catalogue 

 of Coleoptera when completed was a most exhaustive one, 

 and has proved an invaluable aid to the study of the group 

 in Scotland, and indeed, in Britain, for it was adopted as the 

 basis of the Scotch records in Canon Fowler's Coleoptera of 

 the British Islands, the standard work on British Coleoptera. 

 About thirty years have elapsed since the completion of 

 the Coleoptera of Scotland, and in that time and also during 

 the period it was appearing serially in the Scottish Naturalist, 

 a considerable number of species have been added to it, as 

 well as many doubtful records confirmed. The object of the 

 present paper is to gather together these additional records 

 in a form conveniently accessible for reference, as it has 

 always been a matter of difficulty for students of the group to 

 know exactly whether a species not noted in Dr Sharp's list 

 has since been recorded for Scotland. 



