Coleoptera Atlantidum, being an Enumeration of the Coleopterous Insects of the Madeiras, Salvages, and Canaries

Description:

First edition. Rare. 'Considering that scarcely more than a year has elapsed since the publication (by the Trustees of the British Museum) of my volume on the Coleopterous insects of the Canaries, I should perhaps have been content to let the subject rest for awhile, had not the recent arrival of fresh material from those islands demanded my immediate attention. The material alluded to is the result of the late researches of the Messrs. Crotch; and it is so extensive and important, that I felt it would not be possible to do it complete justice without a thorough revision of the entire catalogue into which the new species would hae to be incorporated.' - Preface. The author goes on to explain that he also took this opportunity to compare critically all the Coleoptera which had been detected in the other Atlantic Islands (Madeira and the Salvages). Wollaston had also published earlier works on the Coleoptera of Madeira (Insecta Maderensia, Van Voorst, 1854; Catalogue of the Coleopterous Insects of Madeira, British Museum, 1857).

Thomas Vernon Wollaston (1822-1878) was a conchologist and entomologist. Due to ill health he spent a number of winters in Madeira and other north Atlantic Islands. Wollaston published over 40 scientific papers and is best known for his studies of Coleoptera inhabiting the Macaronesian Islands.

Derkson & Scheiding, Index Litteraturae Entomologicae II, Bd IV: 453.

Condition

8vo, orig. blind-stamped, brown cloth, endpapers foxed, otherwise clean. Recent owner's small ex libris label to pastedown. Vg.