THE ANNALS AND MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. [FOURTH SERIES.] No. 23. NOVEMBER 1869. XXXVI. — On the Coleoptera of St. Helena. By T. Vernon Wollaston, M.A., F.L.S. It is now eight years since I gave an enumeration, in the ' Journal of Entomology,' of fourteen species of Coleoptera which had been detected at St, Helena, on the 21st of July 1860, by the late Mr. Bewicke, during a few hours' collecting in that island [en passant from the Cape of Good Hope to Madeira). Since then, our knowledge of the fauna has been considerably increased, mainly through the exertions of J. C. Melliss, Esq., a gentleman who is resident on the spot, and who continues to take a lively interest in the various branches of natural science ; and although, clearly, very much remains yet to be done, two successive consignments which he has entrusted to me of the beetles which from time to time have rewarded his researches enable me now to venture on some-thing like a systematic, though short, catalogue (destined, I hope, hereafter, to be greatly increased) of the St.-Helena Coleoptera. That a special interest should attach to the productions of any island which is unusually remote, I need scarcely state ; and when we recollect that St. Helena is about 1200 miles from the nearest point of the African continent, we shall at once acknowledge that, for the geographical naturalist, a more isolated field could hardly perhaps be found. The manifest deterioration of the island, in a scientific point of view, during the last 300 years, is a subject on which I need not dilate ; for the primeval forests which are said to have more or less clothed it at its discovery have succumbed beneath the ruth-less hand of " civilization," — a few detached patches alone re-maining, on the extreme summit and more inaccessible slopes, to harbour what is left of that noble fauna the fragments of which are so eccentric that one cannot but suspect the quondam Ann.&Mag.N.Hisi. Ser. 4. Vol'w. 22
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