444 COLEOPTEROUS INSECTS FOUND IN 
Many years ago a similar list was drawn up by the late 
Mr Charles Stewart, and published in the first volume of 
the Memoirs of this Society. It embraces all the Linnean 
orders, and gives a brief enumeration of the more common 
species belonging to each. None of the minute kinds are 
included, and it is confessedly very defective even in those 
of a more conspicuous description, excepting in Diurnal 
Lepidoptera, to which but few additions have since been 
made. Of coleopterous insects scarcely more than an hun- 
dred are recorded ; two or three of these, however, are 
rare, and have not since been met with in the district to 
which the list refers. The vagueness of the Linnean de- 
scriptions (which Mr Stewart seems chiefly to have con- 
sulted), or at least the extreme briefness which renders their 
determinate and exclusive application sometimes rather dif- 
ficult, amid the now greatly increased amount of species, 
has, however, unfortunately led him to introduce the names 
of several insects, not known to be indigenous to Britain. 
Advantage has been taken of the more accurate knowledge 
of synonymy which now pervades our entomological works, 
and the species alluded to have been excluded from the 
present list. 
It is long since Marsham expressed his regret at being 
imperfectly acquainted with the entomology of the northern 
parts of the island ; and but httle has been done since his 
time to supply the deficiency. In the earlier works that 
profess to treat of the insects of Great Britain^ the refer- 
ence to Scotland is scarcely more than nominal. The Ento- 
mologia Britafmica, for instance, of the author just alluded 
to, gives the locality of only one Scotch insect ; and there 
is no work prior, or for many years subsequent to his, more 
satisfactory in this respect. It is true that a good deal has 
of late been done by the few Scottish Naturalists who have 
devoted their attention to this branch of Zoology. Some 
