421 



the Entomological Society in 1870, speaking of the " distribution 

 of insects between the east and west in the southern part of our 

 island," remarks, " I am not aware that comparative lists have yet 

 been published, but it will not be disputed that many hundreds of 

 species of Coleoptera are known in the east, many of them abundant, 

 which are totally unknown in the west, and a smaller number are 

 known in the west which are not found in the east." * 



But in the present instance I refer to insect life generally. 

 The hosts of insects that appear on wing on a fine spring or 

 summer's day in Cambridgeshire, the many ground beetles that are 

 to be seen, Carabidse and other Coleoptera, crossing one's path, or 

 found concealing themselves beneath clods on the arable lands, 

 other insects nestling in the flowers by the way-side, or hovering 

 over the trees and shrubs, is such as I never saw to the same 

 extent anywhere about Bath. And this is especially the case in 

 the fen districts, where there are a large number of species, many 

 too of great rarity, peculiar to marshy places, affording a rich harvest 

 to the collector. 



I feel inclined also to the opinion, though here I may be 

 mistaken, that birds as well as insects — taken in the aggregate and 

 not in reference to any particular species — are more abundant in 

 the eastern counties than in the western. If this be so, in the 

 case of either class some explanation of the fact might be given 

 from the circumstance, generally allowed both by Zoologists and 

 Geologists, of our island having received the main part of its 

 Fauna from the continent previous to the separation of the two 

 lauds. This might lead veiy naturally to a larger number of 

 species as well as hidividuals settling down in the eastern parts — 

 if they found there all they wanted, and other species permitted 

 them to stop — without seeking a residence further off. That birds 

 soon contract a partiality for a fixed home, is seen by the fact of 

 their returning year after year at the breeding season to the same 

 spots, even such species as are migratory, and which have to 

 traverse large tracts of land and water, in order to reach their 

 accustomed haunts. 



• Ent. Trans, for the year 1869, Proceed., p. xlvi. 



