Longitarsus Cinerariae

Thomas Vernon Wollaston published this drawing in his book ‘Insecta Maderensia’ in 1854. In the book he thanks Westwood for providing the illustrations, ‘Particularly, however, would I draw attention to the valuable help which I have received from J. O. Westwood, Esq., whose pencil has been so elaborately employed in the figures which I am thus enabled to attach, and by whom many of the minutest of the dissections were accomplished, — with a degree of delicacy, moreover, to which I did not myself at the commencement of this Work (though I have since succeeded in anatomizing the larger portion of them, likewise) lay claim.’

338. Longitarsus Cinerariae Woll. (Tab. IX. fig. 6.). Wollaston wrote the following about this species:

‘It ranges from about 500 to 5000 feet above the sea, attaining its maximum however near the upper extremity of those limits. Towards the base of the island it is of the greatest rarity, the lowest position at which I have hitherto detected it being in the Rev. R. T. Lowe's garden near Funchal,—where I once captured a single specimen, but could never obtain more. As we ascend the mountains, it becomes gradually more abundant ; until, at the altitude of about 4500 feet, we seldom visit a bunch of the Cineraria, in full bloom, without discovering some traces of its existence. During my encampment in the upland region of the Cruzinhas, in July of 1850, I might have taken it by hundreds,—though scarcely ever under any other circumstances than those just mentioned.’