32 6 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part n. 
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 larvae 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 which 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, Elachista 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 plant in a mild and insular 
climate such as ours may well be supposed to have led to the 
