Mr. J. Nietner on new Ceylon Coleoptera. 419 



of Australia, it would appear there are also none from Southern 

 Asia. However, since the publication of Lacordaire's ' Genres 

 des Coleopt.' (1854), in which this statement occurs, various 

 species must have found their way into the Prussian cabinets 

 with my collections from Bengal and this island. In the former 

 country the Carabida are very abundantly represented ; and I 

 recollect with pleasure the great variety of them (from the 

 gigantic Anthia down to the smallest Bembidium) with which 

 the banks and the sands of the Ganges used to furnish me, 

 when leisurely travelling upon this river some years ago, from 

 August to October, just after the rains. Nowhere have I 

 seen, nor do I expect to see, such swarms of Cicindelce ; their 

 buzzing flight, when disturbed, was heard like that of bees. It 

 appeared to me that they did not quit the sands, their favourite 

 haunts, when the tide rose, but allowed themselves to be covered 

 over by the water, as other semi-aquatic beetles do. Without 

 specially hunting for them, I brought away with me some ten 

 species, mostly new, and, amongst the rest of the Carabida, as 

 many Bembidia. In this island, both in the hills and the plains, 

 there is not a bank of a pond, lake, or river which has not, as 

 in more northern latitudes, its Bembidia ; and, contrary to what 

 one would expect, they appear to be more common in the hot 

 low country than in the cool hill region. The majority of the 

 species described below may any day be found upon the banks 

 of the Colombo Lake. None of the species which, as I said, 

 must have found their way with my collections to Berlin and 

 Stettin, and thence perhaps elsewhere, have, to my knowledge, 

 been described. The descriptions given below must therefore, I 

 am fain to believe, be an interesting addition to the literature of 

 this section of the Carabidse, however inferior they may be to 

 what they might have been had they been produced in Europe, 

 and the insects been collated with allied typical species. I have 

 none of those typical representatives of the genus at hand, nor 

 is my recollection of them sufficiently distinct to permit of my 

 drawing comparisons between them and the Ceylon insects now 

 before me 5 nevertheless I hope I have set forth the peculiari- 

 ties of my species with sufficient precision to distinguish them 

 from, or identify them with, any other Cis-Himalayan species 

 that may hereafter be described. As a hopeless confusion ap- 

 pears to exist amongst the subgenera into which the original 

 genus has been broken up, I have not attempted to refer my 

 species to any of them, for fear of thereby doing anything but 

 throwing additional light on the subject. There is no doubt 

 that many more species exist in this island, and that, indeed, as 

 in the case of the Staphylinidse, they will eventually be found 



