PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



IN consequence of a suggestion made to me by several of my 

 entomological friends and correspondents, I have been induced 

 to undertake, and at length to publish, a specific arrangement of 

 the Carnivorous Ground-Beetles indigenous to the British Isles, 

 a group to which I have paid much attention. No small amount 

 of confusion appears to have existed in their nomenclature, 

 which has arisen from the circumstance of an undue importance 

 having been assigned to varieties, differing merely in size and 

 colour, which have either been formed into imaginary species, or 

 have been mistaken for others which have never been found 

 in Britain, the result of which has been that the total amount 

 of actual species has been considerably overrated. 



In order, if possible, to place their nomenclature and synonymy 

 on a more satisfactory footing, I applied myself to a careful 

 examination and comparison of the various- species contained in 

 all the public and private collections to which I could gain 

 access, especially in those of Messrs. Curtis and Stephens, those 

 of the British Museum, of the Linnsean Society, and the Kirbian 

 collections of the Entomological Society, by which means I have 

 been enabled to arrive at a tolerably correct estimate of their 

 actual value in point of numbers. Some of my more distant corre- 

 spondents have likewise sent me their entire collections of Carabi- 

 deous insects for examination, among which I may mention the late 

 Rev. Mr. Rudd's specimens in the Museum of the York Philoso- 

 phical Institution. The original examples on which Mr. Waterhouse 

 founded the details of his Monograph on the British Notiophili, 



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