2

INTRODUCTION.

and adjusted to the peculiar nature of the country in which they are placed, thatwe cannot resist the conclusion that, whatever may have been the extent or con-dition of that ancient continent of which these several Atlantic clusters are thesure witnesses, that portion of it at any rate which the Madeiras may he supposedto represent was not only singularly rich in creations adapted specially to itself,but also that the various forms must have migrated but very slightly ere the landof passage was destroyed,—seeing that many of them had apparently not evenreached those points of its area which are now the detached portions of the actualgroup. That this is really a fact, we may appeal, inter alia, to such insects as theTarphii (only a single one of which, out of 15, occurs beyond Madeira proper), to-Argutor and Trechus (of the same island), to Acalles (of which 12 members, outof 13, belong to the central mass), to the aberrant Atlantides and the Anemophili(almost exclusively Porto Santan), or to Deucalion (which reigns supreme on thenearly inaccessible heights of the two southern Dezertas).

Although it is of course possible that some few out of the 270 species, and evenof the 41 genera, which I have treated as novelties, may have been already madeknown, yet I believe it will he found, on inspection, that such instances are rare;whilst concerning the claims of the majority of them, being apparently of anendemic nature, there cannot be the slightest doubt. In addition to these 270species, there are 11 which had been previously characterized as Madeiran; thusraising the entire number to 281,—which, out of 482, it must be admitted is alarge proportion to possess even the chance of being peculiar to these islands. Thegenera of the present volume amount, in all, to 213 : one of these ( Cossyphodes )had been lately described as Madeiran ; and 9 at least (namely Calobius, Dactylo-sternum, Xenostrongylus, Metophthalmus, Microchondrus, Peeteropus, Deucalion,Arthrolips and Macrostethus), out of the 41 which are indicated as new, I havereason to suspect have exponents elsewhere,—which reduces the modificationswhich may, or may not, be endemic (but the larger portion of which probably are)to 34. Amongst these 34, perhaps the most remarkable are Zargus, Cossyphodes,Europs, Aphanarthrum, Leiparthrum, Echino soma, Xenorchestes, Glceosoma, andEllipsodes.

It will be seen, on a reference to the Systematic Catalogue of this work, that thetotal absence of numerous genera (and even of whole families) which are lookedupon as all but universal, constitutes one of the most striking features in ourentomological fauna. Thus, incredible though it may seem, not so much as asolitary witness of the Cicindelidce, Buprestidce or Pselaphidce has hitherto beenbrought to light; whilst the great genera Carabus*, Nebria*, Silpha, Necro-

* In Dejean’s Catalogue there is a Carabus registered as Madeiran, under the name of C. interrwptus ;and a Nebria under that of N. dilatata : hut, as no vestige of either one genus or the other lias comebeneath my notice, and since they have totally escaped the researches of the Rev. R. T. Lowe for a periodof twenty-six years, as also of the late Dr. Heinecken and of every other naturalist (so far as I am aware)subsequently ; I have not the slightest hesitation in pronouncing Dejean’s insects (whatsoever they were)