ANTIQUITY OF INSECT FAUNA 
391 
the Antilles, while all other members of the genus are 
American. The only relation of the bug Metacanthus con- 
color of St. Helena occurs in Europe, whereas the three most 
closely (allied genera inhabit America. The genus Nysius 
has a worlcl-wide range, and is known from American Miocene 
deposits. Cardiastethus occurs in Europe as well as in St. 
Helena, but the genus is mostly American, and from there 
ranges across the Pacific to New Zealand. Nabis capsiformis 
occurs in southern Europe, and also all over Africa and 
America, while the genus has a world-wide range. The allied 
Vernonia of St. Helena has near relatives in the West Indies 
and the western Pacific region. Saida is a distinctly northern 
genus, although a few species reappear far southward of 
the others in Chile, New Zealand and St. Helena. That such 
a range implies great generic antiquity is evident, and, 
indeed, Saida is known in several species from the lower 
Oligocene. 
Of the Curculionidae which are so largely represented in the 
fauna of St. Helena, and which Dr. Wallace thought might be 
of Miocene age, many recent genera are now known from the 
Lower Oligocene and they are probably much older even than! 
that, for, according to Dr. Handlirsch, over two hundred 
species are now known from Oligocene deposits. The genus 
Homalota which Dr. Wallace fancied was exclusively Euro¬ 
pean, is represented in the Oligocene of North America. 
Philonthus, Xantholinus and Oxytelus occur in the American 
Miocene and European Lower Oligocene. The supposed 
European genera of insects inhabiting St. Helena are thus 
mostly groups of very wide range, or such of which 
we actually possess palaeontological evidence of their having 
existed since early Tertiary times. 
However ancient the insect fauna may be, remarks Dr. 
Wallace, the flora must be more ancient still. Of the fifty 
truly indigenous flowering plants, about forty are peculiar 
to St. Helena, and of twenty-six ferns, about ten. The re¬ 
lationship of this flora is mainly African, according to Sir 
Joseph Hooker, whereas Mr. Bentham maintains that the 
Compositae have their affinities for the most part with South 
America. Sixteen species of ferns are common to St. Helena 
