298 Mr. T. V. Wollaston on the Coleoptera of St. Helena. 



occurrence of many intermediate links (now, in all probability, 

 long exterminated) which must, as it were, have " articulated 

 them on " to the recognized types with which we are familiar. 

 Of course in an island of this kind, which has become intensely 

 cultivated since the period of its colonization, we naturally 

 should not expect to meet with many traces of its primeval 

 species ; for the gradual rooting-out of the native vegetation, 

 and the introduction, year after year, of more " useful" plants 

 (chiefly from European latitudes, but in the present instance, 

 perhaps, partly from the Cape of Good Hope), accompanied by 

 their inevitable train of insect parasites, would so far alter the 

 entire country as to destroy the apparent peculiarity of its 

 productions, and give a mixed character to its fauna and flora 

 to which aboriginally it had no kind of claim. Happily, how- 

 ever, in cases like this, Avhen the species are brought fairly 

 together, it is usually not difficult for a practised eye to sepa- 

 rate in a general loay the species which are strictly endemic from 

 those which have subsequently been introduced and become 

 naturalized ; and thus it is that out of the seventy-four which 

 are enumerated in the following catalogue, there are only thir- 

 teen concerning which I have (in that particular respect) much 

 doubt. Indeed what we may term the " w/^ra-indigenous " 

 species speak at once, and unmistakeably, for themselves ; 

 and in like manner as regards those which are more or less 

 cosmopolitan, or which have found their way, through human 

 agencies, into nearly every countiy which has the slightest 

 intercommunication with the civilized world, there can be no 

 question. These manifest importations last mentioned, which, 

 however, figure so largely in the St. -Helena list, have no 

 real bearing on the true fauna of any single region beyond 

 those whence they were originally disseminated, and for the 

 most part owe their presence in local catalogues merely to the 

 amount of research which may happen to have been made in 

 the houses, stores, gardens, and merchandise around the va- 

 rious ports and towns. Yet, on the other hand, they cannot 

 be omitted or ignored ; for some of them may have taken so 

 firm a hold on the newly acquired area as to occupy a promi- 

 nent place amongst its primeval organisms, and even perhaps 

 to have aided indirectly in their very extermination. This 

 latter contingency, however, seems to me to represent the ex- 

 ception ratlier than the rule ; for I liave myself generally ob- 

 served that the species which arc manifestly imported linger 

 almost exclusively about the " inliabited regions," and seldom 

 attacli themselves to those wliich arc emphatically wild and 

 uncultivated — and even if in a few instances they should do so, 

 that their modus vivendi is totally different from that of the 



