Mr. T. V. Wollaston on the Coleoptera of St. Helena. 397 



Of the remaining eleven additions, four I should consider of 

 rather more doubtful origin ; for although I believe them to 

 have become established (like those just alluded to) through 

 indirect human agencies, this may or may not have been the 

 case. They are : — 



Thea variegata. Oxytelus alutaceifrons. 

 Xantholinus morio. nitidifrons. 



We now come to the remaining seven in Mr. Melliss's con- 

 signment ; and these I feel no hesitation in asserting are veri- 

 table autochthones of the soil. Indeed, with the exception 

 of a Longitarsus on an unmistakably St. -Helena type, they 

 all belong to either the Curculionidoi or the Anthribids — in- 

 deed to the four genera Microxylohius^ Nestotes, Notioxetius, 

 and Homoeodera, each peculiar to the island, and of very ano- 

 malous structure. These seven, of conspicuously native origin, 

 and which I may be permitted to call i</^?-a-indigenous, are : — 



Microxylobius dimidiatus. Notioxenus feiTugineus. 



angustus. Homceodera coriacea. 



cossonoidec!. Longitarsus Mellissii*. 



Nesiotes liorridus. 



In my enumeration, two years ago, of the Coleoptera which 

 had been detected up to that date (so far as I was able to 

 ascertain) at St. Helena, I recorded 74 species. Hence the 

 21 Avhich the more recent reseaches of Mr. Melliss enable me 

 now to add will augment the entire number to 95. In draw- 

 ing any geographical conclusions, however, from the general 

 character of a fauna, it is clear that those species which have 

 without douht become established through the immediate in- 

 strumentality of commerce and other direct human agencies 

 should be left out of the question ; and consequently, when 

 tabulating, in 1869, what I looked upon as emphatically the 

 " St.-Helena Coleoptera " (including under that title not 

 merely the actual autochthones of the soil, but likewise those 

 for the presence of which in the island the common modes of 

 ordinary dissemination, through various articles of merchan- 

 dize, would not directly account), I withdrew no less than 26 

 out of the entire 74, leaving a residuum of 48. Hence since, 

 on the same principle, 10, out of the 21 now added, have to 

 be removed, the " 48 " from which I deduced my conclusions 



* Tlie number of species, however, wliicli I have regarded in this 

 paper as new to science is eleven, — the Cryptophagiis f/racili2H'd, Xantlio- 

 (inus morio, Oxytelus alutaceifruns, and Oxytelus tiitidifrons having, in ad- 

 dition to these seven " wftra-indigenous " forms, been defined as novelties. 



