THE NEW ‘FOWLER’ 255 
AND YORKSHIRE COLEOPTERA.* 
E. G. BAYFORD, F.E.S., 
Convener of the Yorkshire Coleoptera Committee. 
Tuis supplement to Fowler’s Coleoptera has for a long time been a de- 
sideratum. A careful perusal of the volume makes it obvious that a 
general notice would require more space than could be spared, and there- 
fore we have in the main considered it from the standpoint of a Yorkshire 
Coleopterist. That it is ‘ Fowler’ is of itself sufficient to commend it to 
every one who has realized the value of the five volumes which comprise 
the original work. Were it not for its familiar size, and the equally 
familiar names which bestrew its pages, we might be excused for taking 
it at first sight for a railway guide book or Police Manual, the abbreviation 
‘Supt.’ having always been associated in our mind with ‘ Superintendent.’ 
Here, however, it does duty for ‘ Supp.’ or ‘ Suppt,’ the usual abbreviations 
for ‘Supplement.’ Misspellings, too, are more frequent than one cares 
to see in a scientific work, e.g., ‘ Babbington’ occurs three times, and 
‘Point of Air’ (twice) provokes our risible faculties. 
When the fifth volume of ‘ Fowler’s Coleoptera’ was published in 
1891, Coleopterists in Yorkshire were few in number, and their study of 
the order a purely personal one. Little was known of it except what was 
done at excursions of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. As early as 
1884 the late W. C. Hey, to whom we looked as our leader, commenced. 
a list of the Coleoptera of Yorkshire in the Transactions. Apart, however, 
from his own, experience, his records were perforce drawn from the work 
done by his father, the Ven. Archdeacon Hey, the indefatigable Scar- 
borough entomologists Lawson and Wilkinson, and the more ancient 
records which found their way into Stephens’s Illustrations and Manual 
and the Natural History magazines of the early part of the nineteenth 
century. Failing health obliged Mr. Hey to relinquish his work when 
the Staphylinide had been completed, and it was then, in 1897, on the 
initiative of Mr. W.. Denison Roebuck, that the Yorkshire Coleoptera 
Committee was formed with the dual object of investigating the coleop- 
terous fauna of the county and of completing the list of Yorkshire Beetles 
begun by Mr. Hey. By this time the published portion of the list had 
become obsolete in the sense that it did not give an adequate presentation 
of the state of our knowledge, and it was a moot point whether a sup- 
plemental list should be issued bringing the published portion up to date, 
or an entirely new list commenced. The scheme of the Victoria County 
History, embracing full accounts of the flora and fauna, provided an 
opportunity of publishing in a somewhat modified form a full list with 
localities of all the species recognized in Yorkshire up to that time. 
Since then this list has been carefully brought up to date year by year 
in the Annual Report of the Committee, which has been published in The 
Naturalist. These reports bear witness to the volume of work done in 
nearly every part of the county by the various coleopterists forming the 
Committee. A good list being in existence, one has a right to expect it 
to be consulted, but so far as can be judged from the records inserted in 
the Supplement, such has not been the case. The Naturalist itself, which 
caters for Yorkshire principally and the northern counties generally, has 
_fared no better. Of course this neglect does not affect either The Naturalist 
or the Yorkshire List, but it does most effectively reduce the value of 
the Supplement. The distribution of species is a most important and 
instructive part of all phases of Natural History, and in proportion as 
** The Coleoptera of the British Islands,’ by W. W. Fowler, M.A., 
D.Sc., F.L.S., and Horace St. John Donisthorpe, F.Z.S., F.E.S. Vol. VI., 
Supplement. London: Lovell, Reeve & Co., Ltd., 1913, pp. Xiv.+352. 
Small paper edition, with three plain plates, price 18s. ; large paper edition, 
with twenty additional coioured plates, price £2 8s. od. 
1913 July i. 
