166 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



that of north-western Europe. It is merely a restricted 

 extension of what is known as the Palaearctic Fauna, 

 possessing, at any rate among the Coleoptera, hardly any 

 distinct forms of specific and very few of even varietal 

 value. I am quite aware in saying this that there are 

 some 67 species out of our British total which so far have 

 not been publicly recorded from any other country. I 

 venture, however, to dismiss these as evidences of any 

 distinct Coleopterous Fauna, because, firstly, the bulk of 

 them are merely of slight varietal value ; secondly, they 

 are all exceedingly rare, many resting as unique specimens; 

 and thirdly, because I can recognise no presumption that 

 because they have never been recorded, they therefore 

 necessarily do not occur elsewhere in Europe. 



If, then, we seek the phylogenetic origin of our British 

 Beetles, we must find it in the origin of the whole Coleop- 

 terous Fauna of the north temperate zone, and here we 

 become at once lost in the dark abyss of Geologic time. 

 We certainly know that insects, as we find them now, are 

 of vast antiquity. As far back at least as the carboniferous 

 forms referrable to existing orders appear, while fossil 

 Coleoptera generically allied to present forms have been 

 found in Oolitic and Cretaceous deposits in England. 

 Indeed, it seems safe to assume that the bulk of our 

 present species of insects peopled the England of, at any 

 rate, later Tertiary times. The evidence of this is sup- 

 plied by Beetle remains, wing cases, and so on, found in 

 the Cromer Forest beds, which can be almost specifically 

 assigned to modern Harpali and Donacice. These beds, 

 I believe, are generally admitted to be, at any rate, ante- 

 glacial, and the remains in them probably represent the 

 late Pleistocene fauna and flora of the British Isles, if you 

 can so term some indefinite extension of north-western 

 Europe, of whose configuration and limits we can only 



