PREFACE TO VOL. V. 



I.v issuing the concluding Volume of this work, I feel that acknowledge- 

 ment is due to the many supporters who have helped to make it a 

 success, and to the many friends who have so kindly assisted me with 

 information as to habits and localities, or by the loan of specimens ; 

 besides those whom I have mentioned (Vol. I. Preface, p. vi.), I am 

 especially indebted to Mr. S. Stevens, Mr. H. Moncreaff, Mr. W. F. H. 

 Blandford and Dr. A. Chapman, and also to Mrs. Power for kindly 

 placing Dr. Power's collection at my disposal. 



At the beginning of Vol. I. (Preface, p. xviii.) I expressed my inten- 

 tion of discussing the classification adopted in the work at its conclu- 

 sion ; the chief points, however, have been alluded to under the different 

 divisions and families, and I have therefore abandoned the idea of 

 dealing further with the subject, especially as I see no reason for 

 altering the general classification in the present state of our know- 

 ledge. 



As I before said, in a work like the present, in which so many details 

 have to be examined and verified, and many thousand references to 

 localities collected and tabulated, it is impossible to avoid some errors 

 and inaccuracies ; from the few, however, that have been brought to my 

 notice, I am induced to hope that they are far less than might have 

 been expected ; I may perhaps say, in this connection, that the charac- 

 ters assigned to the divisions, families, genera, etc., are such as will 

 apply to them universally, or at all events as far as the European fauna 

 is. concerned, except in a few cases in which it is especially mentioned 

 that they apply to British species only, and in one or two instances in 

 which I have, in error, adopted characters which I have afterwards found 

 not to be universal (e.g. Anthicidae, Vol. V. pp. 3 and 83, on which a 



