Mr. T. V. WoUaston's Revision of the British Atomaria. 65 



hands, has enabled me, I trust, to form a tolerably correct esti- 

 mate as to the actual species which our fauna includes. The 

 examination of 1,137 British specimens from various parts of the 

 country (fiCl of which were collected by myself, and 247 by Mr. 

 Waterhouse), has given me a very fair insight into the about of 

 aberration, from local disturbing causes, to which ihe several 

 representatives are subject ; and if, in addition to this, I inckide 

 the eighty-seven Continental types with which my cabinet is 

 supplied, the specimens which have passed under my own imme- 

 diate observation, whilst compiling the present memoir, is no less 

 than 1,224. 



With respect to the affinities of the genus, I will merely re- 

 mark, that whilst at one of its extremities it is intimately related 

 to the Cryptophagi, it merges at the other, still more decidedly, 

 into Ephistemus. So nearly akin is it indeed to the latter, that, 

 after a careful dissection, I can perceive no structural differences 

 (of any constancy) between the two, except that the /Itomarice 

 have a minute tooth immediately within the apex of their mandibles, 

 and have the joints of their funiculus (though this is not always 

 very perceptible) alternately long and short ; whilst even the 

 noxmsiX fades of the groups, which (from the small size, subglobose 

 bodies, and shorter limbs of the Ephistemi) might seem at first to 

 be remarkably dissimilar, is in reality so lost sight of in the less 

 typical forms, that at times it is not easy to pronounce, without a 

 close examination, to which of them certain species appertain. 

 This is eminently the case with an Atomaria peculiar to Madeira, 

 and which is so shortened and rounded in its outline that I had 

 regarded it, in my " Insecta Maderensia," as an Ephistemus ; 

 though, not having had occasion, whilst compiling that volume, 

 to dissect the immediately allied groups, I had formed it into a 

 distinct section of the genus, characterized by the very peculiarities 

 (of antennae and mandibles) which constitute the almost sole 

 permanent feature of the Atomarice. 



I would call particular attention to the fact, of what the re- 

 spective insects are to which the Atomarice approximate, at either 

 extremity of the genus, because upon it depends the collocation 

 of the several species inter se ; and because I believe that this 

 circumstance, if duly considered, is more likely to point out a 

 natural arrangement of them than any one character can possibly 

 do, which may chance to be selected, for the purpose of reducing 

 them into sections. It is on this account that I have rejected the 

 greater or less approximation of the antennae, which Erichson has 

 made use of, in classifying them, — believing that if it were strictly 



VOL. IV. N. S. PART III. — JANUARY, 1857. F 



