[21] Considering that I have already detected more than one thousand species in those islands, it may perhaps be questioned whether the same truth is to be gathered from the result of my Madeiran researches. I would wish it therefore to be understood, first, that my statement refers to that group as contrasted with countries in a similar latitude; and, secondly, that its real fauna is alone taken into account,—the host of introductions from more northern regions, a large proportion of which have probably taken place within a very recent period (as may be fairly presumed from the knowledge that fresh arrivals, an almost necessary consequence of the importation of plants, are occurring nearly every season), having been dismissed from our present inquiry.
[22] I perceive, on reference to the original examples, still in my collection, that this was wrongly quoted as the Haltica rufipes. It is the H. exoleta, Fabr., and it is thus entered in Messrs. Hardy and Bold's 'Catalogue of the Insects of Northumberland and Durham;' where they make the observation, "variable in colour; specimens from the sea-coast are frequently of a dark mahogany tint." I have myself indeed, since I communicated the above remarks to the 'Zoologist,' taken its precise counterpart, in abundance, along the Yorkshire coast,—from Bridlington to the extremity of Flamborough Head; so that it may perhaps be regarded as a topographical state which is more especially peculiar to the eastern shores of England, north of the Humber.
[23] Zoologist, iv. pp. 1283, 1284.
[24] Geodephaga Britannica (London, 1854), p. 186.
[25] Zoologist, iii. p. 900.
[26] Zoologist, v. p. 1941.
[27] Monographie des Anthicus (Paris, 1848), p. 149.
[28] Id. pp. 127, 128.
[29] Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London (Part 3. New Series), p. 4.
[30] Insecta Maderensia, pp. 55, 56.