INSECTA MADERENSIA. 11 



to them, yet which) alone ascends to a sufficient altitude to embrace those regions, 

 in the greatest profusion. It occupies the loftiest peaks of nearly all the islands, 

 and was probably once abundant over the entire ancient continent, whatever its 

 limits may have been, of which the Madeu'an Group forms but an isolated part. 

 There are traces of it in the Canary Islands, from whence occasional specimens 

 have been brought, and which, from the want of local data and of sufficient 

 numljers to reason upon, have in their turn been severally regarded as distinct. 

 The fact however is that the species in question is an extremely variable one, 

 assuming diiferences of size according to the altitude at which it lives, and differ- 

 ences of sculpture according to the cu'cumstances of the spot on which it is isolated. 

 That such is actually the case, a careful observation of the many minute changes 

 which the insect has undergone in the varioiis islands and altitudes of the Madeu'an 

 Group will, I think, prove to a demonstration. ~Eoy it is impossible to su.pposo 

 that every rock contains its own species, that is to say, has had a separate creation 

 expressly for itself, — a conclusion at which we must assuredly arrive, if small and 

 even constant differences are of necessity specific. Rejecting therefore this hypo- 

 thesis as utterly untenable, and as contrary to all experience, we are driven to 

 acknowledge that isolation does, in nearly every instance, in the course of time, 

 affect, more or less sensibly, external insect form; — which being admitted, we 

 have at once an intelligible principle whereby to account for modifications innu- 

 merable, each of which, when viewed simply as a difference, independently of the 

 circumstances producing it, might have been regarded as sufficient to erect a 

 " species " upon, had the desu*e for multiplying them overbalanced the love of 

 truth. 



9. Scarites abbreviatus. 



S. ater nitidus subdepressus, elytris ovatis impunctato-striatis, marginibus granulatis et seriato-tuber- 



culatis, angulis Lumeralibus vix prominentibus. 

 Long. Corp. lin. 8^—16. 



Var. a., politissimus ; elytris brevi-ovatis, margin e basali nigose granulato tiiberculisque distinctis 



obsito. — Long. 9-13 lin. (ins. Madera). 

 Var. (3. politus ; elytris brevi-ovatis, margine basali obsoletissime granulato tuberculisque parvis 



obscuris obsito. — Long. 8i-13 lin. (ins. Partus Sanctus). 

 Var. y. politus ; elytris ovalibus, margine basali parce granulato tuberculisque obsito. — Long. 



10-12 lin. (ins. Ilheo de Fora dicta). 

 Var. I. politus ; elytris elongato-ovalibus, margine basali obsoletissime granulato tuberculisque valdc 



distinctis obsito, tuberculo humerali majore. — Long. 12-16 bn. (ins'' Deserta Borealis et Deserta 



Grandis) . 



Scarites ahlreviahis, (Kollar) Dej. Spec, des Col i. 379 (1825). 

 Habitat sub lapidibus in insulis Madcrensibus, sat frequcns : in Madera propria atque in Deserta 



c2 



