4846 Insects. 



Nepticula plagicolella, though most at home on the sloe, mines the 

 leaves of the plum also very readily ; and it is probable that many 

 other sloe-feeders will be found also to occur on the plum. 



H. T. Stainton. 

 Mountsfield, Lewisham, 



September 8, 1855. 



Synonymic List of the British Carnivorous Water Beetles, together 

 with Critical Remarks, and Notices of Foreign Allied Species. 

 By the Rev. Hamlet Clark, M.A. 



Any one who takes the trouble to compare our lists of British 

 Hydrocantharidae and Philhydrida with those of other European 

 countries, as Austria, France, Sweden, comes at once to the conclu- 

 sion that we cannot compete with them ; ours are manifestly inferior ; 

 we can boast neither of the same number nor the same variety of 

 species. Why is this? How is it that, in the genus Hydroporus, 

 Schaum's excellent list of our native species gives but forty-two, while 

 Fairmaire, representing France, can bring forward his sixty-six 

 species ? It must proceed from one of two causes ; either our 

 islands are comparatively unproductive, or our field naturalists have 

 been inattentive. And yet, with regard to the former, if we may argue 

 from analogy and from other departments of Nature, Britain is not so 

 entirely barren ; our Flora is certainly creditable ; our lists of birds 

 are respectable ; fishes, and mollusks and Echinodermata frequent 

 our shores, and Diatomaceae and Desmidiae our peat districts, at least 

 in proportion to those of our neighbours; nay, even as to insect life, 

 we discover — thanks to the energy of some among us — that in 

 Micro-Lepidoptera we are considered preeminent: can it be that in 

 Coleoptera alone, and especially in those groups of the order which 

 are protected by their habitats from many of the vicissitudes and 

 accidents of ordinary beetle-life, and live and die in their native 

 waters from generation to generation undisturbed, we are so inferior ? 

 I for one am convinced that it is not so ; and that our confessed 

 inferiority proceeds simply from the absence of investigation. I 

 remember of course the small geographical area of Great Britain 

 compared with the extent of other countries with their richer Faunas, 

 but I can find in this no sufficient explanation. We have in the 

 Western Islands and Orkneys our Lapland and Sweden ; in Perthshire 



