326 



ISLAND LIFE. 



[part ir. 



recorded peculiarities in the insect world, for it is only by so 

 doing that we can hope to arrive at any correct solution of the 

 question on which there is at present so much difference of opinion. 

 For the list of Coleoptera with the accompanying notes I am 

 indebted to Mr. E. C. Rye ; and Dr. Sharp has also given me 

 valuable information as to the recent occurrence of some of the 

 supposed peculiar species on the continent. For the Lepidoptera 

 I first noted all the species and varieties marked as British only 

 in Staudinger's Catalogue of European Lepidoptera. This list 

 was carefully corrected by Mr. Stainton, who weeded out all the 

 species known by him to have been since discovered, and 

 furnished me with valuable information on the distribution and 

 habits of the species. This information often has a direct bear- 

 ing on the probability of the insect being peculiar to Britain, 

 and in some cases may be said to explain why it should be so. 

 For example, the larvse of some of our peculiar species of 

 Tineina feed during the winter, which they are enabled to do 

 owing to our mild and insular climate, but w^hich the severer 

 continental winters render impossible. A curious example of 

 the effect this habit may have on distribution is afforded by one 

 of our commonest British species, Elacliista rufocinerea, the larva 

 of which mines in the leaves of Holcus mollis and other grasses 

 from December to March. This species, though common every- 

 where with us, extending to Scotland and Ireland, is quite 

 unknown in similar latitudes on the continent, but appears 

 again in Italy, the South of France, and Dalmatia, where the 

 mild winters enable it to live in its accustomed manner. 



Such cases as this afford an excellent illustration of those 

 changes of distribution, dependent probably on recent changes 

 of climate, which may have led to the restriction of certain 

 species to our islands. For should any change of climate lead 

 to the extinction of the species in South Europe, where it 

 is far less abundant than with us, we should have a common 

 and wide-spread species entirely restricted to our islands. 

 Other species feed in the larva state on our common gorse, a 

 plant found only in limited portions of Western and Southern 

 Europe ; and the presence of this pjant in a mild and insular 

 climate sunh as ours may well be supposed to have led to the 



