PREFACE.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to give a complete systematicand synonymic list of the Buprestidse described up to the present time :a general index of all the names used has been added, in order that thesynonymy may he more easily traced, also a list of the hooks and papersquoted, with their titles in full and the dates of their publication. Theresult is, I fear, far from perfect, especially as regards the sequence ofthe species, so many of which are known to me by description only, thatI have been obliged to arrange them on very wide and liberal principles.The system employed must therefore be regarded only as a means ofbringing together closely allied forms, and must not be expected to placeeach in its exact relation to that which precedes and follows it. Torender the synonymy as full and accurate as possible, I have myselfexamined the types in the following collections :—

British Museum, Museums Berlin, Copenhagen , Kiel, Leyden, Oxford,d’Hist. Katurelle de Paris, Stockholm , and Upsala.

Colls. Chevrolat, Kirsch, Le Conte, Linnaeus , Mniszech, Beiche, Salle,Thomson, Weyers.

The general style of the catalogue has been suggested by that now incourse of publication by Messrs. Gemminger and von Harold, differingfrom it chiefly in the species being arranged systematically instead ofalphabetically, and in the total omission of manuscript or mere cataloguespecific names, which seem only to complicate the synonymy and to beof very slight practical value.

The arrangement of the genera will he found to be very similar to that