IXTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Vll 



by far the greater proportion of the species have been entered into 

 its cohimns on the evidence supplied by my own acti;al experience ; 

 and I would call attention to the fact that I adopted a method of 

 annotation of every specimen which I collected so as effectually to 

 pi'event even the possihUity of after- confusion as to the exact island 

 in which it was found. And since the same mode was carried out (I 

 am satisfied, with equal care and honesty) by Dr. Crotch, whilst the 

 captures of Mr. Gray were made whilst we were together, and were 

 entered daily in a list prepared roughly at the time, there seems 

 scarcely an opening for anything appi'oaching to a serious topogra- 

 phical blunder. I lay such great stress upon the complete accuracy 

 of the habitats because observation has cojivinced me how widely 

 some parts of the Group differ in their Coleopterous population from 

 others ; and that consequently, if any soiTnd deductions are to be 

 ventured upon from the local distribution of the several forms, the 

 very ground work on which they must be based will be worse than 

 useless unless established with the most perfect tnithfulness and 

 precision* . 



Of the 930 species enumerated in this Catalogue, only 77 have 

 escaped my own personal observation ; and of these 77, no less than 

 44 are (as lately stated) due to the researches of Dr. Crotch, Of the 

 remaining 33, four' were taken solely by Mr. Gray, one^ by my late 



* It would be a happy thing if this principle were more strictly adliered to by 

 naturalists, as a rule ; for many grievous geographical misstatements, which when 

 once publislied can seldom be absolutely disproved (even though acknowledged 

 afterwards as false on mere negative evidence), would have been thus avoided. I 

 need not adduce instances of this, for our Catalogues teem with them : but, as a 

 case which closely concerns us here. I may just add that I have myself received 

 from the continent, as " Teneriffan" insects which I am quite satisfied were never 

 found except in the two eastern islands of the archipelago — Lanzarote and Fuerte- 

 ventura — in which the fauna, as a whole, is very f)eculiar, and has m^re of an 

 African element in it than is the case in the other portions of the Grroup. Yet 

 these species were pronounced unhesitatingly to be Teneriffan (and have perhaps 

 been disseminated throughout Europe as such) simply because they had hcen sent 

 from Teneriffc. And thus, in all probability, the present Catalogue, which defines 

 their range in accordance with the plainest facts, will be at once regarded by the 

 possessors of those insects as guilty of a very serious error of omission. Surely 

 it would be far wiser, where specimens are received unaccompanied by any posi- 

 tive assertion of the exact localities in which they were taken, not to attempt to 

 define the latter too rigidly. For, in the instance just alluded to, would it not 

 have been better to have called them simply " Canarian " (which would have been 

 strictly true) than " Teneriffan " (wliich happens to be entirely false) ? I entreat 

 entomologists to consider for themselves whether a slight omission of precise 

 habitat (which is of no moment in a general collection) is not at all times pi-efer- 

 able to a downright misstatement. 



1 Symhiotes fygmceus, Hampe ; Apion ceuthorhynchoidcs, W. ; Helops rimosus, 

 W., and Anthiciis angustntus. Curt. 



^ CUvnus Armiiacfii, W. 



