PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. Vll 



which may satisfactorily be resolved into some one or other of 

 the remainder. Equally unwilling have I been to record any as 

 novel, until I had failed to procure its recognition. Of the 

 several species described in this work as new, all have been sub- 

 mitted to the opinion of continental entomologists, with one or 

 two exceptions, and returned as unknown; and whether the 

 latter may ultimately prove to have been undescribed or not, I 

 have thought it better to introduce them as species which are 

 undoubtedly indigenous, than to pass them over without 

 notice. 



As an additional aid in determining the differences between 

 certain closely allied species, some outlines are added represent- 

 ing those external parts of the insects in which the most material 

 distinctions of character are to be found, which, as well as the 

 dissections, and the entire figures of newly introduced species, 

 have been carefully delineated by Mr. Westwood from typical 

 examples. 



I have confined my citations to a few only of the principal 

 authorities, in preference to extending them, as I conceived un- 

 necessarily, beyond the limits of what was requisite to identify the 

 species. The references given to Mr. Stephens' s works of those 

 reputed British Carabida, of which no indigenous examples exist in 

 any collection (and of which the supposed representatives contained 

 in his cabinet must unquestionably be referred to other species), 

 are to be considered as applicable to those supposed representa- 

 tives, and not to the actual species of the authors, whose names 

 he has assigned to them, except where it is otherwise stated : 

 but this remark does not apply to those veritable species of 

 continental authors, which are correctly designated by Mr. Ste- 

 phens as British, because in some instances the descriptions 

 given by our English author apply to the actual species whose 

 names he has affixed to those descriptions, rather than to their 

 supposed representatives contained in his collection. The 

 reputed British species, above alluded to, will be found noticed 

 under the respective heads to which they really belong, and need 

 not here be enumerated : but besides these, there are a few others 

 (not to mention such exotic insects whose claim to admission 

 into the British Fauna has long been abandoned) which are not 

 noticed in the body of this work, and of which no sufficiently 



