BRACHINIDiE. DROMIUS. Vi 



pect that its apparent rarity arises either from its habitation being 

 strictly local, as well as situated in a distant and hitherto unexplored 

 part of the country, — or from its having been overlooked by col- 

 lectors owing to its very close affinity to the following species. I 

 cannot, therefore, consistently with my notions, maintain that this 

 is a rare, or even an uncommon, insect, knowing by experience that 

 novelties are perpetually arising from the smaller insects having 

 been so little attended to in this country. It consequently betrays 

 either an indisposition for generalization, or a pertinacious adherence 

 to preconceived opinions, originating from the proneness of mankind 

 to overrate the value of their acquisitions, when experienced ento- 

 mologists assert in opposition to facts, that local or minute insects are 

 very rare, merely because they have hitherto remained undiscovered, 

 from their locality, or from the apathy with which their investiga- 

 tion has been treated ; whereas the truth is that in repeated in- 

 stances, when once detected and made known, they prove to be 

 not only common, but frequently even imusually abufidant—as is 

 sufficiently exemplified in the present advanced state of the family 

 Pselaphidse — now consisting of thirty species, one only of which is 

 described by Marsham (a fact, however, that has escaped the notice 

 oi every subsequent English writer on that family), whereas many 

 are now ascertained to be so plentiful that several dozens of spe- 

 cimens may be readily obtained in the course of a single day, if 

 industriously sought after * ! The same remark applies with re- 

 doubled force to the absurd parade generally made respecting the 

 capture or possession of nondescript species, by individuals who are 

 nevertheless fully aware that in the order Coleoptera alone we have 

 several hundred nondescripts, and that every day"'s experience in- 

 creases the number : — nay, it may be added, even in the group 

 upon which I am now treating (the Geodephaga), and wliich has 

 occupied the attention of our continental neighbours more than any 

 other belonging to this order, we have in Britain alone at least one 

 hundred undescribed species, and of the remainder, of the said 

 group, scarcely two hundred and fifty are noticed by foreigners, 

 and not one hundred and fifty by native writers ! — facts that fully 

 illustrate the real value of a nondescript species f, and the impro- 



* Mr. Denny states that one hundred specimens of Areopagus bulbifer may 

 be taken in a day in Norfolk. — Den. Monog. PscL &;c. p. 25, 



f At least two-thirds of the insects I possess are unrecorded as British, and 

 of these more than half are nondescript. 



Mandibulata : Vol.1. 1st June, ISaT. c 



