12 MU. A. MUKIIA.Y ON THE GBOGnA.PHICAL RELATIONS OE 



others of the same general character. As to the Atlantic islands, 

 the task is easy to decipher their relations ; Mr. Wollaston has 

 done it ready to my hand in his various admirable researches on 

 their Coleoptera. It would be idle to vaunt the merits of his 

 works to Tellows of the Linnean Society. Mr. Wollaston is 

 one of our number, and we are entitled to regard his honours as 

 gems in our own chaplet, if not laurels of our own growth. In 

 interpreting the faunas of these islands, I have only to recapitu- 

 late the results of his researches ; on almost every point I arrive 

 at the same conclusions that he has done. He has removed all 

 possibility of doubt as to the general identity of the faunas of the 

 northern groups with that of Europe, and notably with the Me- 

 diterranean section of that fauna, or as to their individual identity 

 with each other as members of one and the same subfauna. In 

 the Madeiran group (see ' Insecta Maderensia ' and ' Catalogue 

 of Madeiran Coleoptera') he showed that out of 5S0 species, 

 314 are species already known on the Continent of Europe ; true, 

 he considers (in which he goes further than I would) that so 

 many as 120 of these had been imported by man, or otherwise 

 found their way to the islands ; but, even after deducting these, 

 he leaves 194 known European species aboriginally present, as 

 against 2G6 endemic species. These endemic species, again, are 

 all akin to the European forms, fit easily into their places among 

 them, and all possess the facies of that fauna. I have already 

 alluded to the want of reciprocity between Madeira and Europe 

 in regard to any specialities they possess, and shall merely illus- 

 trate that remai'k by noting the fact that, although Mr. "Wol- 

 laston credits Europe with a recent remittance of nearly the half 

 of the European species, he acknov/ledges that no repayment in 

 kind, has ever been made by Madeira, not a single example of any 

 of its peculiar species having ever found its way to Europe, ex- 

 cept in an entomologist's box ; and this, be it remembered, although 

 the means of introduction have been at least as open on the 

 return as on the outward voyage *. 



In the Canary Islands (see ' Catalogue of Canarian Coleoptera') 

 * I know it may be replied to this that an unusual proportion of the Madeiran 

 endemic species are apterous ; but this, even although it were a good answer, 

 would only account for the deficiency of a proportion equivalent to the relative 

 number of apterous, as against winged species ; but it is not a good answer 

 even as regards them ; for no one supposes that the introduction of species from 

 the continent to Madeira has been by actual ilight. It is floating wood and 

 birds that are usually referred to as the vehicle or mode of transmission. 



