actions of the New Zealand Institute; and in 1885 the last- 

 named eminent Coleopterist, in the Transactions of the Royal 

 Dublin Society,* made what was up to that time by far the 

 most important contribution to our knowledge of the New 

 Zealand beetle-fauna, mainly based on a very large collection 

 from the South Island received from Mr. R. Helms of Grey- 

 mouth. In this fine paper, to which I am greatly indebted, 

 Dr. Sharp estimates " that New Zealand will be found to 

 possess somewhere between 3000 and 3500 species of Cole- 

 optera," a prediction which has been more than fulfilled. 

 Prior to that date, however. Captain (afterwards Major) T. 

 Broun, whose decease we have quite recently had to deplore, 

 had issued at Wellington in 1880 the first part of his " Manual 

 of New Zealand Coleoptera," in which 1141 species were 

 enumerated. This work, although in parts decidedly open 

 to criticism, has been of very great value to every one interested 

 in the entomology of New Zealand; and to the end of his 

 long life the author continued, almost single-handed and 

 under many difficulties, to describe the multitude of hitherto 

 unknown forms brought to light by his own researches and 

 those of the other Coleopterists resident in the Dominion. 

 The endemic members of several important families, such as 

 the Byrrhidae, the Cossonides, and especially the Pselaphidae, 

 have been revised by him in quite recent years. Just before 

 his lamented decease, Prof. F. W. Hutton in 1904 published 

 his exceedingly useful " Index Faunae Novae Zealandiae," 

 which includes a complete catalogue of the insects as known 

 up to that date, and enumerates 2735 species of Coleoptera 

 as occurring in the Islands. At the present time aliout 4000 

 species, a number considerably in excess of that of our British 

 beetles, are known to inhabit the New Zealand Region^ and 

 these are comprised in nearly 700 genera. 



The unequal representation of the New Zealand insects is 

 in no Order so strikingly evident as in the Coleoptera. Thus 

 the important families Cetoniadae and Cassididae are entirely 

 absent from the fauna ; and only four small species of the 

 Buprestidae, so abundant in species and individuals in 

 Australia, have as yet been found in New Zealand. The 

 * New Series, Vol. Ill, pp. 351-452, plates XII, XIII. 



