





o"- 







xxiii 







INTRODUCTION. 



Having in my cabinet a number of insects, including some new and singular 

 forms, which were chiefly collected in Canada by Dr. Bigsby, and in Nova Scotia 

 by Dr. Mac Culloch, I thought it would add considerably to the interest of the 

 present Fauna, if, as far as relates to the insects, it were made coextensive with the 

 British Territories in North Ameriea ; I have, therefore, with the consent of Dr. 

 Richardson, included them in my catalogue, which may thus be regarded as the 

 first attempt at an outline, meager indeed and imperfect, of British American 

 Entomology. 



I must also here observe, that several of the insects collected in the Expedition, 

 were taken in the journey from New York to Cumberland-house, without its being- 

 noted on which side of the 49th parallel of Latitude, the southern limit of the 

 Zoology of the British American Fur Countries, as fixed in Dr. Richardson's 

 Introduction, 4 they were taken ; so that it was not in my power to distinguish the 

 species taken in the British from those taken in the American territory. I thought 

 it therefore best to include the whole. 



So many different methods of arrangement have been traced out, or adopted, by 

 different Entomologists, no two having altogether pursued the same path, that 

 when I first set to work upon these insects, after I had ascertained the genus to 

 which each species belonged, and which of them appeared to be non-descript, it 

 was a source to me of no little thought, doubt, and perplexity to determine upon 

 whose footsteps I should tread in the arrangement of them in a series, especially 

 with regard to the Coleoptera Order, or Beetles. Two eminent Entomologists, my 

 lamented friend M. Latreille, and Mr. W. S. Mac Leay, amongst others of less 

 note, have taken great pains to form natural groups, but upon different principles, 

 and both have rendered important services to the science ; but both also, in some 

 degree, by the adoption of an hypothesis, have tied their hands and impeded their 

 own progress. M. Latreille by following Geoftroy's method, in which the number 

 of the joints of the tarsi is assumed to indicate the primary sections of the Order 



1 Pasre xi. d 2 



