INTRODUCTION. 
WHEN we review the great questions arising out of the geographical distribu¬ 
tion of animals and plants, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the close inves¬ 
tigation of any given area, however minute, must contribute materially, provided 
its position be a significant one, to lighten the labours of those more comprehen¬ 
sive naturalists who are able to wield, -with a master’s hand, the scanty data 
gleaned by the humbler workers in the science to a practical account. And, since 
it has been said that whatsoever falls within the sphere of knowledge is attached 
to a radius and tends towards the centre, there is reason to hope that no am ount, 
of truth, once fairly arrived at, will he eventually lost; hut that it will sooner or 
later find its way into the central mass, to he employed, whensoever chance may 
require it, for the general good. Hence it is that we are encouraged, in every 
branch of observation, to register what we see; and to feel that the most trivial 
facts, if faithfully recorded, may become the basis from whence the soundest 
theories may arise,—such theories forsooth as have already arisen from the con¬ 
templation of circumstances apparently beneath our notice, and which have grown 
up, step by step, into trees of gigantic dimensions, to embrace at last large prin¬ 
ciples within their shade. 
Such being the case, I have ventured to hope that the examination of islands 
even so small as those now under discussion may not have been altogether without 
profit. The intermediate situation of Madeira, which, whilst pertaining artificially 
to Europe, has nevertheless much in common with the north of Africa (from 
which in distance it is the less remote), imparts to it an interest, the importance 
of which the student of Zoological geography cannot fail at once to recognise: 
and, if we scan the results arrived at in the following pages, we shall perceive that 
there is positive ground for the belief that its Coleopterous fauna is, in a large 
measure, of a very isolated type. Although partaking, in the main, of that par¬ 
ticular stamp which is usually acknowledged as Mediterranean, yet the number ot 
endemic species (and even of genera) would seem to be so gfeat, whilst the new 
S modifications which have been brought to light are so extremely characteristic, 
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