108 COLLECTION AND PRESERVATION OF INSECTS. 



of that of alimentiveness. All fisherman's flies are to be 

 met with towards evening, and may then be readily taken 

 on the wing, or may be beaten during the day from bushes 

 overhanging running streams. 



The above is a brief sketch of the haunts of the more 

 abundant orders of insects, and the modes by wliich they 

 may be taken : it would be impossible, within the limits of 

 a work like this, to record the dwellings of each species ; 

 this knowledge is to be acquired by practice and careful 

 observation. 



No portion of the study of Entomology will be found 

 more interesting than its Geography : the authors who 

 have given most attention to this subject are Latreille and 

 MacLeay, but neither of these has been fortunate in laying 

 down any rules on the subject that are likely to be of per- 

 manent utility to the collector. It must be obvious to 

 every one who has seen a box of insects from the Brazils, 

 Africa, New Holland, or China, how great is the variety, 

 how large the size, how brilliant the colours of the produc- 

 tions of those countries, when compared with the insects of 

 our own; and it is absolutely necessary to obtain some 

 general knowledge of the geographical distribution of par- 

 ticular forms of insects, and the causes influencing those 

 forms, before any extended views of the science can be 

 entertained. It will be found, on inspecting a well-filled 

 cabinet of insects, that there are many giant groups, as 

 ScarabcBUS, Buprestis, &c. which possess scarcely a repre- 

 sentative in the British islands ; while other groups, such 

 for instance as contain the death's head hawk-moth and 

 the stag beetle, may be considered as duly represented in 

 this country by those gigantic species : and in one tribe of 

 insects, known by the vulgar appellation of devil's coach- 

 horses (genus Staphylinus), the immediate neighbourhood 

 of London produces, as far as we yet know, a greater num- 



