Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION. By H. W. Bates, F.R.S. The total number of species of Insecta and Arachnida collected by Mr. Whymger during his journey in Ecuador amounts to about one thousand. Unfortunately it has been found impossible to induce specialists to work up the whole of the groups for the purpose of the present volume; several important families and whole orders remain unnamed, and arc therefore for the present unavailable in aiding us to form some idea of the nature and relations of the Fauna of the Equatorial Andes. A rough estimate has been made of the numbers of species in the missing groups. Thus Baron von Osten Sacken, on looking over the Diptera, considered them to number about 100; Mr. Druce, who partially determined the Moths (Lepidoptera Heterocera), found 44 species; the Hymenoptera (exclusive of the Ants) appear to be scarcely less numerous than the Diptera, and the Spiders comprise not fewer than 200 species. The Orders and Families of the Insecta class enumerated or described in this Supplementary Appendix comprise 359 species. Of these no fewer than 131 are new to science, and many of them are so distinct that 14 new genera have had to be instituted for their reception. So much interest attaches to the nature of the Insect Fauna of high altitudes in the Equatorial zone of the Andes, and to its relations to the Faunas of Chili and Temperate zones of North America and Europe, that it would be undesirable to let the occasion pass of analysing Mr. Whymper's collection with this view, notwithstanding that B so large a portion must be left out of the examination. The few remarks I have to make must further be restricted almost exclusively to the Coleoptera. There is the less disadvantage in this that the collections made by Mr....