INTRODUCTION.

WHEX we review the great questions arising out of the geographical distribu-tion of animals and plants, there can he no doubt whatsoever that the close inves-tigation of any given area, however minute, must contribute materially, providedits position he 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 datagleaned by the humbler workers in the science to a practical account. And, sinceit has been said that whatsoever falls within the sphere of knowledge is attachedto a radius and tends towards the centre, there is reason to hope that no amountof truth, once fairly arrived at, will he eventually lost; hut that it will sooner orlater find its way into the central mass, to be employed, whensoever chance mayrequire it, for the general good. Hence it is that we are encouraged, in everybranch of observation, to register what we see; and to feel that the most trivialfacts, if faithfully recorded, may become the basis from whence the soundesttheories may arise,—such theories forsooth as have already arisen from the con-templation of circumstances apparently beneath our notice, and which have grownup, 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 islandseven so small as those now under discussion may not have been altogether withoutprofit. The intermediate situation of Madeira, which, whilst pertaining artificiallyto Europe, has nevertheless much in common with the north of Africa (fromwhich in distance it is the less remote), imparts to it an interest, the importanceof 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 thatthere is positive ground for the belief that its Coleopterous fauna is, in a largemeasure, of a very isolated type. Although partaking, in the main, of that par-ticular stamp which is usually acknowledged as Mediterranean, yet the number ofendemic species (and even of genera) would seem to be so great, whilst the newmodifications which have been brought to light are so extremely characteristic,

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