Insects. 4917 



There can be no doubt that when this fine family becomes a more 

 universal favourite with entomologists, that many species, rare or even 

 unique in our cabinets, will be procured in abundance, and new 

 species will be detected; but I think we can never expect to find, as 

 was intimated in the last number of the ' Zoologist,' a very con- 

 siderable number which are natives of France and Germany. It is 

 geographically improbable : nearly the whole of France is to the 

 South of England: the country (viz. two or three degrees) beyond a 

 line drawn from Bordeaux eastward, either skirting the Pyrenees or 

 bounding the Mediterranean, where African types are far from un- 

 common. France also stretches to the Rhine and Rhone on the 

 East, and as far West as any part of England. France may there- 

 fore be presumed to produce most, if not all, of the species found in 

 this country, as well as a very large amount of Austrian and Italian 

 Coleoptera, which we may look for in vain in our island. Our 

 advantage, if any, over the fertile and varied soil and climate of 

 France must be sought for in the North, where, from recent re- 

 searches, it appears that the Fauna of Scotland is identical with that 

 of Sweden, and in Ireland, which extends much farther West than 

 any part of France or even of Europe. 



In viewing this subject impartially and correctly, it will be seen, by 

 referring to other orders and families, that Great Britain cannot com- 

 pete with France in her entomological productions ; for instance, our 

 Heteromera will scarcely fill a drawer, w T hilst those of France of 

 themselves form an extensive collection ; and our poverty is still more 

 manifest in the Buprestidae, Lamellicorns and Longicorns. Again, if 

 we turn to the Lepidoptera, we shall find France far richer than 

 England. The amount of Papilionidae must be treble that of ours, 

 whilst Artaxerxes and dispar are the only species we can boast of 

 that are not natives of France. In 1830 I saw on the wing and 

 captured in central and southern France, in an excursion of two 

 months, fifty-one butterflies I had never seen alive before, and it has 

 struck me as a remarkable fact, that whilst in the South of France 

 one finds almost a tropical Fauna as regards insects, the species of 

 the North of Europe are also very abundant, as at Pau, in the Basses 

 Pyrenees, Toulouse, &c, where the Carabidae, Curculionidae, &c, of 

 Great Britain are the most common.* 



It is therefore to the Lakes of Scotland and Ireland I expect that 



* It was ouly last year that my friend M. C. Delarouzee took Pytko depressus 

 near Cauteret. 



