Comparatively little is known of the insect fauna of the Bahama Islands, since most of the collectors who have gone to the West Indies have confined their attention chiefly to larger and better settled members of this great group, and as a consequence we have a tolerably fair knowledge of such of them as Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, and Guadaloupe, with scarcely any records from the little rocky islets of which the Bahamas proper are composed. Late researches on the coast of Florida have shown a close affinity between the fauna of that region and of the Antilles, so that the study of the insects of the latter has now a direct bearing on that of those of our own domain. The short sketch which follows is intended merely as a preliminary account of a collecting trip to certain points in the British West Indies, and no more is hoped for than to give the reader a general idea of the coleopterous fauna of these at the time of year during which the collections were made. Only occasionally was it possible to land and work the country for insects, as the main object of the expedition, of which the writer was a member, was the study and collection of the marine invertebrata, and most of the time was necessarily devoted to them.