INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. XX111 



hitherto been detected, amounting to no less than 57, appear to be 

 absolutely endemic ! Of these 57, 19 are found in the Madeiras, 

 and the remaining 38 in the Canaries. Of the 19 Madeiran ones, 15 

 belong to my genus Atlantis, and only 4 to Laparocerus (even whilst 

 merging Cyplioscelis into the latter) ; whereas of the 38 Canarians, 

 33 are Laparoceri, and merely 5 are Atlantides, from which it 

 follows that Atlantis may be regarded as almost exclusively Ma- 

 deiran, and Laparocerus proper as Canarian*. 



After Laparocerus (and its attendant satellites, Atlantis and Cy- 

 phoscelis which perhaps ought scarcely to be treated as more than 

 subdivisions of it), the genus Homalota has the largest number of 

 exponents namely 43 ; but as I believe that the majority of them 

 will be found ultimately to be common European ones, and since 

 these minute Staphylinids are eminently liable to become diffused 

 (by human and other agencies) over the civilized world, I lay but 

 little stress upon this fact. The next in order, however, is most 

 significant and wonderful ; for it seems barely credible that the 

 group Acalles, of which about 27 species only have as yet been 

 detected in the whole of Europe, should (in conjunction with the 

 closely allied genus Echinodera) possess as many as 36 in these 

 Atlantic islands ! True it is that some 4 or 5 of them have hitherto 

 been so imperfectly examined (on account of the deficiency of ma- 

 terial) that I can scarcely regard their diagnoses as altogether satis- 

 factory ; nevertheless I do not believe (so long as slight permanent 

 differences, in sculpture and colouring, are looked upon as necessarily 

 specific) that that number can ever be much reduced, unless certain 

 representative forms in the Madeiras and Canaries be considered but 

 modifications (brought about by isolation, or local influences) of 

 single species which were aboriginal. For my own part I am in- 

 clined to suspect that the real clue to this extraordinary number of 

 apparent species may reside in the fact that insular phases have in 

 many cases been matured from primeval types ; for the genus Acalles 

 seems to be emphatically " sportive," or subject within reasonable 

 limits to external change. But there is perhaps no Coleopterous 

 group in this entire archipelago which, so far as my own observa- 



* So local are these 57 exponents of the subfamily Laparocerides, or so re- 

 stricted to their particular islands (and even districts), that I believe there is no 

 single instance of any one of them occurring both at the Madeiras and Canaries ; 

 for although it is true that I have queried for the latter Group the Laparocerus 

 morio (which is so abundant throughout the Madeiran archipelago), I neverthe- 

 less cannot but feel a suspicion that some mistake may have arisen concerning 

 the hah it af of the Baron Paiva's two examples of it, which (up to the present 

 tiiiu-j arc all the evidence for its admission into the Canarian fauna. 



