Se he Se eet 
BO BO le a 
Te RL ee ge mee, 
Dr. Schaum on the British Geodephaga. 33 
native collectors the comparatively few species of the scanty Bri- 
tish fauna, are not sufficient for the entomologists of the conti- 
nent, who have a richer field before them. Recognition from 
descriptions, besides, becomes still more difficult, because insects 
which are represented by English writers under names given by 
Gyllenhal, Dejean, or other authors, are frequently incorrectly 
determined, and consequently cannot serve as starting-points for 
the settlement of the other species. An interchange of specimens 
has not yet been successfully introduced, for most of the English 
collectors, induced by the insular position of Great Britain, con- 
fine themselves entirely to the investigation of their own fauna, 
and usually feel no interest whatever in continental insects. 
A two months’ residence in London gave me the opportunity 
of seeing the collection of Mr. J. F. Stephens frequently, and 
as the most liberal permission to make use of it was granted to 
me by the kind owner, I resolved to investigate thoroughly some 
families contamed in it, considermg this more advantageous 
than collecting notes on individual species of different families. 
I chose Carabici and Hydrocanthari, with which I am most con- 
_versant, and in which I promised myself most success. I should 
willingly have investigated some other groups, such as the Hlaters 
and a part of the Palpicornes; but my stay i London was too 
short, and my time too much occupied to admit of this ; and be- 
sides, I dreaded making erroneous statements in many cases, from 
the impossibility of now and then comparing correctly deter- 
mined specimens of German species. 
It is to be wished that English entomologists, following Wal- 
ton’s example, would set themselves to the task (and attend to it 
closely) of studying individual families, so as to bring about in 
them an agreement between the English nomenclature and that 
employed on the continent. Walton’s laborious works on the 
British Curculionide are published in Taylor’s ‘ Annals of Na- 
tural History,’ and I hope the ‘ Entomologische Zeitung’ may 
soon give us translations of his last essays. 
I will now go through the genera of Carabdici in their order. 
Cicindela sylvicola.—The specimen figured by Curtis, which is in 
the collection of Mr. J. F. Stephens, is a green variety of C. Aybrida, 
Dej. The true C. sylvicola, Dej., is not indigenous in England. 
Dromius fenestratus, Ste., is not fenestratus, Fab., Dej., but a va- 
riety of D. testaceus, Erichs., with a yellow spot on the anterior half 
of the elytra*. The type of the latter species is mixed with D. agilis 
in Stephens’s collection under the names of D. agilis and meridio- 
nalis. 
D. bipennifer is Sigma, Rossi, Dej.; D. impunctatus belongs to 
* This lig is described by Dejean, i. p. 242, as D. agilts, var. a. 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. iu. 3 
