INTEODUCTION. 



^VHEN we review the great questions arising out of the geographical distribu- 

 tion of animals and plants, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the close inves- 

 tigation of any given area, however minute, must contribute materially, provided 

 its position be a significant one, to lighten the labours of those more comprehen- 

 sive naturalists who are able to wield, with a master's hand, the scanty data 

 gleaned by the humbler workers in the science to a practical account. And, since 

 it has been said that whatsoever falls ■ndthin the sphere of knowledge is attached 

 to a radius and tends towards the centre, there is reason to hope that no amount 

 of truth, once faiiiy arrived at, will be eventually lost ; but that it will sooner or 

 later find its way into the central mass, to be employed, whensoever chance may 

 require it, for the general good. Hence it is that we are encouraged, in every 

 branch of observation, to register what we see ; and to feel that the most trivial 

 facts, if faithfully recorded, may become the basis from whence the soundest 

 theories may arise, — such theories forsooth as have ah'eady arisen from the con- 

 templation of circumstances apparently beneath oiu* notice, and which have grown 

 up, step by step, into trees of gigantic dimensions, to embrace at last large prin- 

 ciples within their shade. 



Such being the case, I have ventured to hope that the examination of islands 

 even so small as those now under discussion may not have been altogether without 

 profit. The intermediate situation of Madeira, which, whilst pertaining artificially 

 to Europe, has nevertheless much in common with the north of Africa (from 

 which in distance it is the less remote), imparts to it an interest, the importance 

 of which the student of Zoological geography cannot faU at once to recognise : 

 and, if we scan the results arrived at in the following pages, we shall perceive that 

 there is positive ground for the belief that its Coleopterous fauna is, in a large 

 measiu'e, of a very isolated type. Although partaking, in the main, of that par- 

 ticular stamp which is usually acknowledged as Mediterranean, yet the number of 

 endemic species (and even of genera) would seem to be so great, whilst tlie ncAv 

 modifications wliich have been brought to light are so extremely characteristic, 



b 



