4624 



Entomological Society. 



each description ; and I must not omit to add that these descriptions 

 and remarks are invaluable to the British Coleopterist, because a large 

 proportion of the genera described and cited for comparison are fami- 

 liar to us as indigenous to Britain. Into such descriptions and such 

 remarks it is impossible for me to enter here, but [ cannot forego the 

 opportunity of citing some general observations which appear to me 

 of more than ordinary value. The statistical conclusions forced on 

 Mr. Wollaston's attention by his analysis of the Madeiran Coleoptera 

 are as interesting as unaccountable. In this mild and sunny isle there 

 is not a single representative of those lovers of warmth and sun, the 

 Cicindelidae and Buprestidae ; in the deep mossy ravines there is no 

 representative of the moss-loving Pselaphidae ; in this land of flowers 

 the flower-feeding lamellicorns and the Elateridae have each but a 

 single and abnormal representative : descending to genera, the cosmo- 

 politan Carabus, Nebria, Silpha, Necrophorus, Cetonia, Telephorus, 

 Tentyria, Pimelia, Acis, Asida and Otiorynchus are entirely unrepre- 

 sented. The numerical proportion of the thirteen great groups of 

 Coleoptera present in Madeira is as follows i — 



Rhyncophora . 



104 



Necvophaga 



80 



Brachelytra 



74 



Geodephaga 



63 



Serricornes .... 



35 



Atrachelia .... 



29 



Cordylocerata . 



22 



Phytophyga 



21 



Pseudotrimera . 



17 



Philhydrida 



13 



Trachelia .... 



11 



Hydradephaga . 



7 



Longicorns 



6 



482 



The most remarkable feature in this list is not the preponderance of 

 Curculionidae, Necrophaga, Staphylinidae and Carabidae, all of which 

 one would suppose abundant, but the extremely small number of 

 water-beetles and longicorns : 4 Colymbetes, 2 Hydropori, and the 

 familiar Gyrinus natator, are all the Hydradephaga. Mr. Wollaston 

 thinks that this paucity is not difficult to understand, " the rapid nature 

 of the rivers, which are liable to sudden inundations from the moun- 

 tains, and to deposit their contents in positions distant from their 

 banks, or to pour in ceaseless torrents over the perpendicular faces of 



