382 MIDLAND ENTOMOLOGY. 
selected. To the lists as limited there are many additions ready to be 
made; and if they were opened so as to include the wider area, they 
would expand enormously. As they stand, however, indicative of what 
has been accomplished, they are suggestive of much more to be done 
before the knowledge to be obtained of even the Butterflies and Moths of 
our suburban woods, lanes, and fields is exhausted. 
I have no catalogue of Midland Coleoptera to refer to, but I can 
testify that better things are to be found amongst us than Nebria 
brevicollis and Pterostichus madidus, and that the sterility said to prevail 
here exists only in the imagination of those whodraw conclusions from 
insufficient premises. Amongst the species of Coleoptera taken by 
myself, I may mention that I have found at Knowle, nearly in the middle 
of the most midland of the Midland Counties, specimens of the rare 
Trachys troglodytes, whilst Encephalus complicans, Orobitis cyaneus, Calli- 
dium alni, &c., have been frequently found by myself in the same locality. 
It is worth mention here that a fine specimen of the rare Prionus 
coriarius has been presented to me by Mr. Thos. Taylor, whose nephew 
found it last. July crawling on a wall at Aston-juxta-Birmingham. A 
few hours’ hunting on Cannock Chase produced Carabus nitens, C. 
arvensis, Nebria livida, Miscodera arctica, Pterostichus lepidus, Silpha 
opaca, and several other uncommon species. Not far from Burton-upon- 
Trent Mr. Harris, of that place, discovered the rare and curious 
Macronychus quadrituberculatus, a species found nowhere else in England. 
Surely a district in which such insects as these are to be found cannot 
be considered unworthy of further examination. The fact is, as I have 
before hinted, our knowledge of Midland insects is in a very imperfect 
state; and, because little is known, it has been rather hastily and 
unwarrantably concluded that there is little to know. I do not claim for 
the Midlands the insect riches of the east and south, but I do say that 
a great deal more may be discovered here, with a little effort, than has 
ever been dreamed of. The habits of great numbers of our insects are 
so obscure, and the laws and conditions which regulate their appearance 
from time to time so little understood, that it is only by close and 
systematic observation, extending over a number of years, that the 
insect inhabitants of any particular locality can be ascertained. 
Practically the Entomology of an extensive district like our own is 
inexhaustible, something “new” or ‘new to the district” being 
constantly turned up, and it may be taken as an axiom that the more 
closely a locality is examined the more productive will it be found to be. 
Having thus, to some extent, cleared the Midland district from the 
aspersions cast upon it, and shown that it presents a not altogether un- 
promising field for Entomological energy and enterprise, we may now 
fairly ask what is being done towards developing its insect riches. 
It must at once be admitted that, compared with the extent of the 
field and the vast number and variety of its insect denizens, the work 
is sadly neglected. The important and extremely interesting orders 
Hymenoptera and Diptera are scarcely touched, whilst most of the lesser 
orders are almost as much disregarded as if they had no existence. The 
