The Coleoptera of the British Islands, Vol. 1

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Excerpt from The Coleoptera of the British Islands, Vol. 1: A Descriptive Account of the Families, Genera, and Species Indigenous to Great Britain and Ireland, With Notes as to Localities, Habitats, Etc The following work was originally taken in hand in order to provide a want that has been much felt by British Coleopterists, namely, a short account of our indigenous Coleoptera, with some reference to their localities and habits, and, where possible, to their life history: since it was begun it has somewhat increased in scope, as it was found impossible to reduce it within short limits, and at the same time not detract from its usefulness. At the outset I was promised valuable assistance by the late Dr. Power, Mr. Champion, Dr. Sharp, Rev. A. Matthews, Mr. Mason, and other leading Coleopterists, who have most kindly placed the requisite material at my disposal, and in many ways helped me. I must also express my great obligations to Mr. Bates for his valuable assistance in the classification of the Carabidæ, and to M. Bedel for his kindness in placing his structural plates of Dytiscus and Pterostichus at my disposal, as also to the Rev. A. Matthews for the two structural figures which he has drawn for me, which are most valuable as coming from one who has of late years bestowed especial study on the external skeleton of Coleoptera. I have endeavoured to make an especial point of the distribution of our British species, and have been much interested in this part of the work by finding how very few beetles are really common in the sense of being generally distributed, and, on the other hand, how very few are really rare, the majority of the so-called scarce species are locally abundant, and may be found in numbers if their habits are discovered. It is obvious that the question of distribution is one that can only be settled by the aid and co-operation of many collectors, and I therefore take this opportunity of saying that shall be very grateful for any lists of local captures, more especially in Wales or Ireland: the latter country has been very little worked for Coleoptera, but I have nevertheless obtained much valuable information from Haliday's Belfast list, McNab's Dublin list, and Dr. Power's list of species taken near Waterford, and also from the Rev. W. F. Johnson of Armagh, who is doing very good work at the Irish Coleoptera: the Scotch localities are admirably worked out in Dr. Sharp's catalogue published in the Scottish Naturalist. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.