V 



I 





■ 



. 



■.. 







» 













: 











V.16 



- 



SI 



■ 







. 











-' ■■ --. 



. 



■ ■ 









. 





























• 





• 



■ ■ 

 ■ 





■ ■ . 



■ 





















INTRODUCTION. 











■ 



..* 















■ 





























i 











■ 



The present volume, the first of the Coleoptera of the ' Biologia Centrali- Americana,' 



9 



completes the first two families — Cicindelidse and Carabidse — of this great order of 

 insects. Thanks chiefly to the four years' researches of Mr. Champion in Guatemala 

 and the State of Panama ; the collections formed by M. Salle and Herr Hoge, supple- 

 mented by M. Boucard, M. Flohr, and others, in Mexico; the labours of Mr. Belt in 

 Nicaragua, and of Mr. Rogers and Van Patten in Costa Rica, material has been furnished 

 to enable us to present an approximately complete fauna of the region embraced by our 

 work in these two important families. Some parts of the region undoubtedly have not 

 yet been sufficiently explored, and many additional species may be expected, as indeed 



is the case with other much better known parts of the world of similar extent ; but 

 enough is perhaps known to enable us to form some idea of the relations of the fauna 



in this department to those of other parts of America and other tropical countries. 



The few remarks which it seems necessary here to make on this subject must, however, 



be of a very general nature, a complete review being impossible from the circumstance 



v 



that the Coleopt 



fauna of 



other tropical area of similar 



at least in 



respect of the two families in question, has ever yet been worked out. 













■ 













The number of the species of the two families recorded in this volume is 1086 



belonging to 154 g< 



This is less than a tenth of the total number 



present 



described from the whole world, which cannot be much less than 12,000. It is larger, 

 however, than the apparent poverty of tropical regions in Carabidse would have led us 

 to expect. The tolerably well-worked valley of the Amazons, although rich in species 

 of genera confined to alluvial plains, and in arboreal forms, contains only 576 species 



ging to 124 g 



and 



fauna of such tropical regions as the Malay archi 





pelago is evidently still poorer. On the other hand the European fauna contains 

 1750 species belonging to 114 genera (Stein's Cat. 1877), and temperate North America 

 1211 species belonging to about 130 genera, a total which has been largely increased 



















{ 



■ 



