XX INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



entomological neighbours. Almost without an exception, the insects 

 of that archipelago which I have hitherto received have been em- 

 bellished with this universal ticket ; yet there is nothing of which I 

 am more sure than that a large proportion of them were never found 

 in Teneriffe at all being in point of fact from one of the two eastern 

 islands of the Group, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, where the fauna 

 is unmistakeably characteristic, and possesses more of an African ele- 

 ment than is the case elsewhere. But these Coleoptera are neverthe- 

 less communicated as unquestionably " Teneriffan," and circulated 

 throughout Europe as such probably for no better reason than that 

 they had been received from some careless amateur who made his 

 head quarters in Teneriffe, and who did not think it worth while to 

 preserve a record of the exact islands whence his material was ob- 

 tained. And thus a geographical error is at once established in 

 collections, which no amount of after-protest (from those who have 

 studied the distribution in situ) can hope to neutralize. It may 

 perhaps be urged that a blunder of that sort is simply inevitable, on 

 account of the specimens having been received as nominally coming 

 from Teneriffe ; but I reply that it was the duty of those to whom 

 they were first consigned to sift the evidence for the habitat before 

 reasserting the latter in positive terms, and if they found it (as, in 

 this case, they manifestly would) to be untrustworthy, not to stereo- 

 type them as Teneriffan but to call them, merely, " Canarian." 

 This latter would have been perfectly correct, and it entirely satisfies 

 the ordinary requirements of naturalists ; whereas the former is 

 absolutely untrue, and perpetuates a falsehood. I am fully aware 

 that these remarks will make no practical difference in their mode 

 of labelling ; but is it too much to ask of such Coleopterists whether 

 the omitting to point out some exact locality, or island (which is 

 seldom required to be known), ought not to be preferable to a down- 

 right misstatement?* 



The ' Histoire Naturelle des lies Canaries. 9 But before dismissing 

 my plea for accuracy, I feel bound to say a few words, also, on the 

 strange absence of it, so conspicuously exhibited, in the meagre list 

 of Coleoptera (numbering but 179 species !) which was prepared for 

 the ponderous Canarian work of MM. Webb and Berthelot. In the 



'* On one occasion I received from a Parisian correspondent an Heteromerous 

 insect even from the Cape de Verdes (a most unmistakeable species, which is "quite 

 peculiar to those islands) with the eternal label " Teneriffe " fastened to it ! But 

 this quasi-habitat, however much insisted upon, was really too ridiculous to do 

 any permanent harm to the cause of entomological geography. 

 ' 



