1889.] 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 167 



Gossiping Notes on British Coleoptera. 



By G. A. LEWCOCK. 



II. THE BRITISH LIST (Continued from p. 126.) 



For a space of five years or more, the British coleopterists enjoyed 

 a complete rest, as nothing of any importance occurred during this 

 period either to disturb or bewilder them ; but the year 1871 wit- 

 nessed the publication of Dr. D. Sharp's " Catalogue of British 

 Coleoptera." Referring to this catalogue, Mr. Rye says: — "There 

 has been of late years nothing worthy of reference but the second 

 edition of Mr. Crotch's catalogue to embody the very numerous 

 additions now constantly made to the list of the British coleopterous 



fauna. But.... owing to its want of authors' names, and to its 



arrangement being almost entirely at variance with that to which 

 entomologists in this country have been accustomed, this latter work 

 has not been of so much general service as could have been desired. 

 Dr. Sharp's catalogue, however, will be found satisfactory in both 

 these respects (although the authors' names are not supplied to the 

 genera), and, apart from some orthographical discrepancies and other 

 errors (corrected as to these latter, for the most part, in the work itself, 

 and, as to the more important of them, in the Entomologist's Monthly 

 Magazine, VIII, 84), leaves but little to be desired This cata- 

 logue represents an entirely original scrutiny of our species by its 

 author, down to the end of Brachelytra. The urgent need of a new 

 list has caused the somewhat premature publication of it ; or, other- 

 wise, the whole body of the catalogue would have been composed 

 under similar trustworthy conditions ; the remaining portion therefore, 

 after the Brachelytra, may be considered as not fairly expounding Dr. 

 Sharp's views." — {Annual, 1872). 



The species are numbered throughout, commencing with Cicindela 

 campestris (No. 1), and ending with Alexia pilifera (No. 3186). An 

 addenda of 7 brings the total number of species up to 3193. The 

 second edition of Mr. Crotch's catalogue enumerated 3081, which, on 

 comparison with Dr. Sharp's number, 'gives an addition of 112 species 

 new to the British list since the publication of Mr. Crotch's catalogue. 

 Of this number (3193), however, " some 40 may be deducted as repre- 

 senting doubtfully indigenous species to which a place is still pro- 

 visionally accorded, accidents in numbering and the Stylopidae, 



which no one possesses, and concerning which great difference of 

 opinion still exists."— (Annual, 1872). 



