16 INSECTA MADERENSIA. 



ably the same species ; and as the former was estahKshed first, we are bound, in 

 right of jjriority, to retain oui" present insect, specifically, under that name, although 

 the latter is the one by which it has been hitherto universally recognised. It 

 appears however that the insect was first descril)ed by Eabricius, from a Madeiran 

 specimen in the Banksian collection, in the year 1775, as Carabus Maderce ; and 

 that in 1787 he gave the name of Carabus Indagator to examples of the same fi-om 

 Barbary. There is no doubt whatsoever that the two insects are one and the same 

 species. There is not the remotest difference between them in any single respect, 

 except that the head and prothorax of the Madeii-an specimens are a little more 

 roughly jiunctured (nevertheless abnost imperceptibly so) than is the case in the 

 Eui'opean and African ones. And we can only sujipose, either that Fabricius de- 

 scribed them hastily (as indeed would appear to be the case, since he registers them 

 ])otli as apterous, whereas they are powerfully winged) and without comparison 

 Uiter se ; or else that the single Madeiran example from, which he A.vii\\ up his 

 diagnosis chanced to be some slight aberration from the normal tyjic. The former 

 of these suppositions, however, is probably correct ; for although no tUlference 

 whatever exists between the insects in question, yet in 1801 he places them, in his 

 Systema Eleutheratorum, in different genera, retaining the Maderce as a Carabus, 

 and raising the Iiidagalor to the rank of a Calosoma ! Be the cause of the mistake 

 however what it may, it is probable that, having once described them as distinct, 

 th(>y wcvc never afterwards re-examined, but wcyg retained as such m the whole of 

 his later works, — from Avhence they have been transcribed into nearly every cata- 

 logue that has been subsequently published. Being an insect which finds its maxi- 

 mum in Mediterranean latitudes, it \Aould, even a priori, seem far from unlikely 

 that Madeira and the opposite coast of Barbary should produce it in common : and 

 such, on investigation, we find to be the case. It occiu"s likewise in Spain, Italy, 

 the south of France, and in the Canary Islands. The Calosoma Indagator of 

 Gyllenhal, and of other northern entomologists, is not the Fabrician species, 

 but the Carabus auropimctatus of Paykvill, — nearly allied to it. The true C. Inda- 

 gator of Fabricius (/. c. our present species, Maderce, — by which name it must 

 stand) does not occur apparently in northern Eurojoe at all. 



It is tolerablv abundant throughout Madeira and Porto Santo, both at interme- 

 diate and lofty altitudes. In the former, it has been taken in great i)rofusion by the 

 llev. R. T. Lowe at the llibeiro Frio, particvdarly during August of 1819, and I have 

 myself captured it sparingly in the same district. Dm-ing my encampment in the 

 upland region of the Fanal, in July 1850, I observed it in considerable numbers, 

 both there and on the Serra of Seisal, crawling rapidly over the short grass in the 

 hot sunshine, especially after showers. I have not myself detected it 1)elow the 

 elevation of about 3000 feet above the sea; nevertheless I possess specimens 

 collected by Professor Heer, at the end of May, on the Cabo Gerajao, near Funchal ; 

 and others by M. Rousset, on Ihe lUieo de Baxo of Porto Santo, — the lowest alti- 

 tudes, so far as I am aware, in which it has hitherto been found. 



