SOQ Linnean Society. [June 2, 



June 2. 

 E. Forster, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



Read some " Notes towards a Statistical Account of the Fauna of 

 New Zealand and the Auckland Islands, so far as regards Annulose 

 Animals." By Adam White, Esq., M.E.S., Assistant in the Zoolo- 

 gical Department of the British Museum. Communicated by the 

 Secretary. 



In these notes, Mr. White remarks on the advantages offered by 

 an insular position, of comparatively limited extent and far removed 

 from any great continent, in the drawing up a local fauna or flora ; 

 and anticipates that in the course of time, when we shall have been 

 furnished with nearly perfect lists of the animals and vegetables in- 

 habiting New Zealand, we may arrive at tangible results regarding 

 them, free from the disturbing influences which result from the great 

 extent and varied nature of such a continent as New Holland, and 

 from the ready access afforded to wanderers of both kingdoms by the 

 proximity of such islands as our own to great and almost adjoining 

 continents. He limits his present observations to the Coleopterous 

 order of insects, and states the sources from which the various col- 

 lections examined by him have been derived. From the information 

 which he has been enabled to acquire from all these sources he 

 arrives at the following conclusions : — 1st, that Coleoptera do not 

 aboxmd in species in New Zealand ; 2ndly, that the numbers of Cicin- 

 delidce, Carahidos, CurculionidcB and Longicornes are strikingly cha- 

 racteristic of its Coleopterous fauna as compared with any part of 

 New Holland ; and Srdly, that Cetoniadee, Buprestidce and Chryso- 

 melidcE, so abundant in nearly every part of the Australian continent, 

 are either wanting or very poorly represented in New Zealand. He 

 does not, however, venture in the present state of our knowledge to 

 propound these as axioms ; and instances the paucity of species of 

 various orders of insects, especially Hymenoptera and Neuroptera, 

 enumerated in the ' Fauna Boreali-Americana,' as compared with the 

 large number of species of those orders collected by Mr. Barnston in 

 a single locality within the limits of that territory, as a striking ex- 

 ample of the fallacy of the conclusions which might be drawn from 

 insufficient and uncertain data. 



The author then proceeds to give an enumeration of the species of 

 each Coleopterous family hitherto detected in New Zealand ; and ob- 



