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XXIII. — A Catalogue of Coleopterous Insects 
found in the neighbourJiood of Edinburgh, with 
occasional reference to their localities. 
By Mr James Duncan. 
(Read IMi March 1831.^ 
The Insects enumerated in the following Catalogue are 
indigenous to the district around Edinburgh. They have 
been collected within six or seven miles of the city, except 
in a few instances, where these limits have been exceeded, 
in order to admit certain rare or otherwise interesting spe- 
cies. The list has been prepared under the impression 
that it would be advantageous to those who may hereafter 
study the subject in this part of the country, to know what 
insects are likely to occur, and in what places they may 
most readily be found. It has been restrictedj in the mean 
time, to the Coleoptera, from a desire to make the enume- 
ration of that order as complete as circumstances would ad- 
mit. It is the branch which is most commonly studied, 
and it is also considerably more extensive, as well as more 
difficult, than the others ; while, at the same time, the im- 
portant functions which its members perform in the economy 
of nature, and the injurious consequences which not unfre- 
quently result to the farmer and the horticulturist from 
their superabundant increase, render a knowledge of their 
special haunts and general distribution more than usually 
desirable. 
