BY THOMAS G. SLOANE. 515 



Note on the EelationsJiip of the Carabidcp. of South-west Australia. 



The collecting of the Carabidpe of Australia has not been 

 carried out with sufficient care to enable accurate and satisfactory 

 conclusions to be formed as to their distribution; nor are pub- 

 lished local lists of general completeness available, except Sir 

 "William Macleay's lists for the localities of Gayndah and King's 

 Sound, both of which are deficient in classificatory exactness 

 according to modern ideas. Consequently the data available for 

 the study of the distribution of the Carabidie in Australia are 

 imperfect and faulty, but some general results may be obtained 

 from an examination of the facts I have been able to bring 

 together. 



Insects extend back to such a remote geological period that 

 their present distribution is of little value in establishing zoologi- 

 cal regions, though, in some cases, it is useful as throwing 

 additional light on theories in regard to the former dispersion of 

 animals over the globe. Moreover the numbers of species and 

 even of genera are so great that the examination and comparative 

 consideration of them becomes wearisome and tedious to the 

 reader. For the reasons stated my notes on the relationship of 

 the Carabidse of South-west Australia to those of other parts of 

 the continent will be brief, and will in the main disregard species. 



The term South-west Australia, as here intended, refers only to 

 the extreme south-western corner of Australia from a little north 

 of Swan River to King George's Sound; further, I confine my 

 attention almost wholly to the Carabidte sent by Mr. Lea from 

 that area, because the recorded localities of the species formerly 

 noted as from "West Australia" have in most cases merely a 

 general significance. Also, in contrasting the Carabideous fauna 

 of South-west Australia with that of other parts of Australia, 

 instead of using Professor Spencer's Torresian and Bassian sub- 

 regions, I shall adopt the term East Australian Slope for the 

 united region, because our knowledge of the distribution of the 

 Carabidaj of these subregions is insufficient to enable me to treat 

 of them separately. The East Australian Slope I limit to the 

 area between the summit of the dividing: ranaies of Eastern and 



